Vestnik MGTU (Sep 2018)
Chocolate as a product for functional nutrition
Abstract
The problem of producting food products with functional properties has become increasingly urgent in the recent years. This is explained by the deterioration of the overall ecological situation, the decline in the quality of life, the emergence of a large number of chronic and widespread diseases. An increasing number of doctors and nutritionists are of the opinion that it is nutrition that can prevent many types of diseases. It is functional foods that can serve as a prophylaxis for many diseases: diabetes, cardiovascular changes, oncology, atherosclerosis, etc. Deterioration of the human body is associated with an increase in the amount of free radicals in the body, a decrease in the number of antioxidants inside cells of various organs, i. e. absence or deterioration of its own antioxidant defense system. Many functional products are positioned as products containing vitamins and antioxidants. As a result of chemical composition study (the content of phenols and flavonoids) and antioxidant activity (the ability to trap free radicals of 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl, reducing force with the FRAP reagent and inhibiting the oxidation of linoleic acid) of the raw material for the production of chocolate – cocoa beans products: cocoa butter, cocoa liquor, cocoa powder, cocoa grain – high values for all products except cocoa butter have been discovered. A comparative study of these indicators for 14 brands of chocolate, both domestic and imported, relating to different price categories has shown that chocolate brands have values of the same level approaching the high levels of raw materials. The level of the studied indicators does not depend on such characteristic of the indicator as a price of chocolate. It has been revealed that such product as chocolate bar cannot be distinguished as an effective antioxidant.
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