Chocolate typifies the bizarre world of health claims. Hayden Shaughnessy sinks his teeth in
It says something about our desire for freedom, a release from guilt. Chocolate is the new health food and, as they used to say in American vaudeville, you ain't seen nothing yet.
For about a decade and a half we've known that the flavonoids in the cocoa bean have potential health benefits. They have an antioxidant effect. They scavenge free radicals.
The antioxidant sheen has raised the profile of popular health store products such as Green & Blacks Organic chocolate, sold recently by American founder Craig Sams to British chocolate maker Cadbury for around €30 million. Chocolate is very definitely an "in" product.
The global confectioner, Mars, of the famous chocolate and caramel bar that Scots people eat deep fried, sponsored much of the ground-breaking research that went into establishing chocolate's positive side, the antioxidant effect in particular. Mars though is turning its back on what is popularly known about the health virtues of the sweet. Antioxidants are just not good enough.
Indeed, the stakes are being raised in a chocolate and health endgame being played out around us.
Food marketing in general is leading us in a direction where we will soon be seeing not just health claims but fully blown medicinal claims for ordinary foods, something the alternative health lobby might feel was, until recently, their own preserve. For while we read about the threat to our liberties posed by new limits on the sale of herb-based health products, the legislation restricting the claims made for herbal "cures" also limits the health claims made for food in general, arguably limiting our ability to share a traditional sense of the benefits of specific foods.
Chocolate illustrates the point with bitter sweet precision.
Referring to the antioxidant properties of chocolate, Marlene Machut, director of health and nutrition communications at Mars's new nutrition products division, says: "We didn't really know what that [ the antioxidant effect] meant. We don't doubt that antioxidants have a benefit but they've never been linked to a clear clinical benefit. We couldn't be clinically precise about it."
Instead, research and development spending at Mars has been spent on establishing the clinical links between chocolate bars and a healthy heart.
You did read that right.
With the right processing techniques to protect the integrity of the cocoa bean, Mars claims its new CocoaVia chocolate bar, which incorporates plant sterols, can reduce blood stickiness, relax the blood vessels, reduce low density lipid (LDL) cholesterol and, taking all these together, contribute to better heart health.
The claim has provoked some US health experts to warn that CocoaVia bars nevertheless contain calories and adding them to the diet without taking calories out elsewhere, will add weight. That is potentially damaging to our health. However, nobody, yet, has refuted Mars's claims.
The point is obvious enough. In an age when science, rather than tradition, appears to offer the safest way of dealing with food, precision and proof ought ultimately to provide the litmus test for a food's health value.
Functional chocolate production in Ireland, that is chocolate produced with a specific health objective, is not lagging behind.
Celtic Chocolates, according to managing director Joe Callery, began producing a sugar-free chocolate about a decade ago in response to requests from diabetics. More recently Celtic has grouped its functional chocolates under the Free From banner. It produces chocolate bars that are free from gluten, free from dairy, and free from sugar and, says Callery, the products have been very well received and not just in Ireland. Several UK supermarkets are looking at stocking the range.
"It's partly a labelling issue," says Callery. "What appeals to consumers is that Free From is very clear what it's about. Celtic Chocolates have a simple ingredients list, mostly chocolate and sugar, instead of the various ingredients you'll get in other chocolates. People know they're getting a superior product with the benefits of it."
The most popular Free From product is dairy free and Callery makes an important point about its attractions.
"The research in the UK shows that about 3-5 per cent of the population has a real lactose intolerance problem, meaning eating dairy makes them very ill, but 39 per cent of the population believe they are lactose intolerant. So there's a lot of self-diagnosis going on out there."
While scientifically validated claims for the efficacy of functional foods may appear to be the way forward, consumers have other ideas about their own bodies. The research shows that self-diagnoses, accurate or fanciful, lies behind important food choices and drives food markets.
The advantage Mars now seeks is to move beyond this potentially fickle consumer mindset and corner precise clinical marketing messages. It may be controversial at the moment but the application of science has an irresistible momentum.
That we are headed in that direction is illustrated too by developments in the spa and cosmetics world. Chocolate is becoming the ultimate spa treatment, the ultimate base for the manicure, pedicure and facial.
Cocoa butter is a widely used base ingredient in skincare products but Swiss health science innovator Herzog has taken chocolate's health benefits closer to the total body experience.
"Herzog has a patented oxygen therapy that increases the ability of oxygen to penetrate the skin," says Julie Cichocki, treatment development director for Herzog's spa treatments. The therapy is used by dermatologists in the treatment of, for example, burns victims.
"What we did about three years ago was combine chocolate, the cocoa bean and its phenolics, calcium, potassium, with oxygen therapy to get those great boosts into the skin. It works."
The presence of phenolics is usually indicated by the astringent, bitter taste of chocolate. It's also there in red wine. They're thought to stop low density lipids from oxidising and causing the arterial problems we all associate with cholesterol. Phenolics are present in most plants. As Mars is beginning to show, their effect might well be multiple.
The Herzog chocolate therapy is due to roll out in two Irish spas in the next few weeks. CocoaVia, on the other hand, was launched in the US with no clear plans to launch it in Europe.
A CocoaVia drink, launched in the UK in 2003, proved to be less than successful and Mars withdrew it. It's now monitoring CocoaVia's progress in the US before making any decisions on expanding the product here.
Two lessons might be drawn from the experience of chocolate. One is that once again taste is a significant barometer of a food's health-giving power. Bitterness and astringency is good. Second though, what Mars has packed into CocoaVia is, in the end, available from a balanced diet where bitter tastes sit alongside green vegetables.
We might be reluctant to see it that way but the enduring proof of modern research is that balancing our diets is the only guarantee of good health.