CSU's The Audit

INTRO: The character Forrest Gump would say "Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get." But if you’re Colorado State University researcher Caitlin Clark, you know exactly what you’re going to get. At least when it comes to the chocolates. 

Clark is a senior food scientist at CSU’s Spur campus’ Food Innovation Center. Her research focuses on two things: fermented foods and chocolate. Occasionally she even studies them at the same time. 

So, as we near Valentine’s Day – the unofficial chocolate holiday – we thought we’d talk to Clark about the science behind this beloved treat, why we love it and why we should be paying more attention to how it’s being made and where it’s coming from. 

HOST: I think if I was going to be a food scientist, focusing on chocolate would be a definite place I would start. 

CAITLYN CLARK: It's the best. 

HOST: Tell me a little bit about your path into food science and fermentation and then finally to chocolate. 

CLARK: I didn't start out as a food scientist. I was a linguist before, but I was living in Madrid and traveling all over the Mediterranean and was just having all these fun food experiences that I thought of as just fun. At the time, I had no idea that I could turn it into work. A lot of those experiences were with what I now understand to be fermented foods. I didn't really think of it that way at the time, but I was making sausage and cheese and wine and just all these neat things. So, all these experiences were just kind of accumulating. 

One day I was at a market, like a Christmas market, and the local university in Cartagena in the south of Spain had a booth there for their food science program. And I was like, Oh my God, I didn't realize food science was a thing. I went home and told my husband at the time I needed to go back to grad school and be a food scientist. It all happened really fast. I moved back to the states, and I still had my Colorado residency, so I was looking for a university in Colorado. Colorado State had just started the food science program with the fermentation concentration. So, I went and visited and thought it was great, and I applied. Ten years later, here I am. 

HOST: And how did that go from fermentation to chocolate? 

CLARK: When I came back, I actually intended to work in dairy. I was interested in cheese making because I had worked on a bunch of goat farms and that included a lot of cheese making with goat milk. I happened to be walking around Fort Collins getting familiar with it because I had just moved there for school, and Nuance Chocolate had just opened. Nuance, if you're not familiar with it, it's just a great little chocolate shop in downtown Fort Collins. Toby and Alix run it, and they make great chocolate. 

They had just opened a few months prior to that, and we got to chatting and Toby mentioned that chocolate is a fermented food. I didn't know that, and I had all of these questions about it because I was obviously into fermentation and wanted to talk to someone about fermentation. He just kept saying, I don't know. I don't know. Nobody knows that. And I was like, how does no one know this stuff? Chocolate is such a popular product. Sure enough, as I went to research it more, there was a whole bunch of stuff that we don't know about chocolate fermentation. So, I was just hooked. I wanted to study it. 

HOST: It's interesting because when you think of fermented foods, you think of kimchi or yogurt, those kinds of things. You don't think of chocolate. So where does fermentation enter the process for chocolate? 

CLARK: You're right. It is not what we typically think of. I think that's because, like with most fermented products that come to mind, when you say fermentation, like you said, kimchi or yogurt, we're eating something that is live and active in the fermentation and we're interacting with the direct results of the fermentation process. 

With chocolate, that's not true. We're interacting with far down the line byproducts of the fermentation process. So, with chocolate, it grows on this tree in these football shaped pods. When the pods are cracked open, the seeds, which is what we call cacao beans, they're really the seeds of this tree which are surrounded by this kind of pulp of the fruit. 

The pulp and the seeds are all scooped out into this huge mass in these boxes, and that's where the fermentation actually happens. It's really the pulp that ferments initially. The pulp is full of sugar. It's delicious. If you ever get a chance to taste it, it's really sweet. So, it ferments at first with yeast, just like wine. In fact, some people do make wine out of the pulp of cacao tree. 

It ferments by converting the sugars and the pulp into alcohol. And there are some other things that happen to some of the pectIns breaking down, but mostly it's that sugar to alcohol pathway. It's essentially like making wine right there in the box. 

After a couple of days, though, some bacteria come in and take over. It's a lot of what we call acetic acid bacteria, which is the same bacteria that make vinegar and other fermented food. Also, they're really prevalent in kombucha, and they come in and convert that alcohol that the yeast produced into acids and the acids that they produce seep into the cacao seed, the bean, and cause a bunch of biochemical changes and physical changes that really turn it into what we could use to make chocolate. If that didn't happen, it wouldn't be a material that we could use to make something we recognize as chocolate. It requires that fermentation step that produces those acids that seep in. 

Then sometimes at the very end, there's a step with some additional organisms, sometimes bacillus, sometimes some fungi, it depends a lot on the location and the specifics of the fermentation. Then after that, the beans are dried under the sun. And then, of course, in later steps there's roasting and all sorts of things, so the microbes actually don't survive in the chocolate. That's where it's different from products like yogurt or cheese, where we're used to consuming products that contain fermented organisms. And chocolate doesn't. 

HOST: It gives you a very different way to look at chocolate. We think about the roasting, we think about the melting, we think about those things. But fermentation is a process that no one really connects the dots to. Along the same lines with the science behind chocolate. If you asked me why I like chocolate, I probably wouldn't be able to put a finger on a specific reason. I just like it. Is there a scientific reason behind why so many people love chocolate? What is the science behind that? 

CLARK: Yeah. I mean, how do you study deliciousness, right? So, a few factors: its flavor is highly complex. It’s one of the most complex foods that we know of and that largely comes from fermentation. The fermentation results in so many of these precursor compounds that then later when we roast the chocolate, those compounds get converted into what we then taste in the final chocolate. There are just hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them, more than we find in coffee or wine or other foods that we think of as high complexity, very flavorful. In chocolate, there's a lot to stimulate our senses. So, that's one component of it. 

Another one is the sugar and the fat. There's a lot of sugar and there's a lot of fat in chocolate. Those are things that our brains are driven to appreciate. Another component is that chocolate contains methylxanthines. Caffeine is one. That's also in some other products like coffee. 

But chocolate also contains a methylxanthine called theobromine, which is similar in structure to caffeine, but it functions a little differently. It doesn't have such a sharp, stimulating property. It has kind of a gentler lift. The benefit that some people get from it, there's some evidence that it's part of the addictive feature of chocolate. 

HOST: I knew it. I knew it was addictive. 

CLARK: Right? Yeah, when you put all those things together, it goes a long way towards describing why some people find chocolate hard to eliminate from their diet. 

HOST: And why would they want to? 

CLARK: Exactly. Exactly. 

HOST: Now, over at Spur, you have started a chocolate lab. Tell me a little bit more about that, because I think that's a science lab that everyone would want to hang out in. 

CLARK: Yeah, my chocolate lab is still very small. We just wanted some small equipment so we could do some experiments. Also, because we sometimes work with clients who are small, bean-to-batch chocolate producers or who have some feature of their product that involves chocolate. We wanted to be able to respond to those needs. 

But also, we recognized that a big part of what we do is interfacing with the public. We're trying to generate interest in food science as a discipline, but also in food and agriculture in the world. We want to help people relate to those ideas with something that might be meaningful or important to them and show people possible careers that they can have. 

Chocolate is just a great way to do all those things and also show people a lot of science, because chocolate isn't only food science. It's great to demonstrate mechanical engineering principles and physics and other aspects of chemistry. There's a lot you can do with it outside of our regular work of just working with clients. 

We can only actually produce pretty small volumes, but it lets us test different variables of how things work. It also lets me bring in people for workshops or classes. We haven't started offering that yet. We're still figuring out what we could put together. I've thought about doing something like a truffle making class or a make-your-own-bar/learn about chocolate class. Those are some of the directions that we'd like to take that lab. 

HOST: Are there specific issues that you'll be researching with chocolate? Please tell me it's a calorie-free chocolate that tastes exactly like the real thing. 

CLARK: Guilt free. You can eat as much of it as you want. Yeah, that's my goal. No, we have some research ideas, but research is probably not our top priority right now. Some things that we've heard interest in that people are interested in figuring out how to get fiber into chocolate, how to get protein, maybe plant proteins, into chocolate. People are interested in combining chocolate with non-chocolate components to make something that can then still be made into a bar to maybe reduce the total quantity of chocolate that's actually being used but still get the benefit of chocolate in terms of its flavor and also those addictive properties that we talked about earlier. Those are some things that we've heard interest in from clients or from other circles. Then I have a few other ideas that I would just like to toy with as well. 

HOST: You know, it's interesting, the idea of adding fiber, because there is a healthy element to dark chocolate, right? 

CLARK: Yes, in some cases. I think it's probably overrated. I think a lot of the polyphenols in most dark chocolate, especially the dark chocolate that you buy in a grocery store, probably don't survive. There have been some studies done where they've measured the total polyphenol content in various dark chocolate products. 

The range you get is really wide. They're everywhere from zero to some reasonable numbers. It is true that dark chocolate probably has more benefit than milk chocolate, and also that the better quality dark chocolate that you buy, like if you were to go into Nuance and get a dark chocolate bar, you'd probably be getting some real health benefit from that In terms of flavanol content, polyphenol content, compared to one that you got at the grocery store. 

But I think honestly, the reason it kind of makes me smile is because I always want to tell people to just eat some blueberries. If that's what you're trying to get out of this, eat a handful of blueberries and then go eat any chocolate you want to. That's not why you should be eating chocolate. 

HOST: You’re bursting so many bubbles right now. 

CLARK: I know. Sorry. 

HOST: Going back to the chocolate lab, I'm wondering, will you be needing volunteers to do taste testing? Because I bet there are a lot of folks who would love to be guinea pigs for the chocolate lab. 

CLARK: Yes, eventually we hope to be doing some taste testing. We have an amazing sensory scientist, Dr. Martha Calvert, and she runs our sensory lab. And we do all sorts of taste testing there. Sometimes we do it for clients, but we also sometimes do research projects or in-house projects. 

Martha and I have been kicking around some ideas for things we could do in partnership with the chocolate lab, either just for fun or possibly for research purposes, to see if, for example, I want to test different roast profiles, but one roast profile maybe takes twice as long. Does that matter? Can people actually tell the difference? Do they actually like the one better that takes longer? Is it worth it to invest that time? Things like that, we'll definitely need people to come in and do taste testing to get that data. 

When she schedules a test, Martha sends out that schedule to her group of Taste Buds. Taste Buds are people who have signed up to be notified about activity in the sensory lab. Anyone who wants to sign up for that could go onto the Spur website and look up the sensory lab and sign up on the Taste Buds spreadsheet. Then they would find out about things we do with chocolate, but also all the other cool stuff that it does in a sensory lab. 

HOST: I think chocolate is one of those things that we don't think too much about the growing or the production process as much as maybe we could. Maybe the average person listening to this is thinking, I don't care how it's made, I just want to eat it. But why should they care more about the process. 

CLARK: Great question, and that's one of the reasons we have a chocolate lab in the first place is because the agriculture part is part of our focus here. We want people to be thinking about that when they interact with chocolate as a product. People might be questioning it more now because chocolate prices have gone up so much and wondering why. The reason for that is not really what's happening on the production side, it's what's happening on the agriculture side. 

Giving more visibility to that might help people understand and also have sympathy for the people who are on the ground in that respect. The agriculture part of chocolate is so important. It's also something that is hard to talk about in generalizations because it's done different ways all around the globe, and it's something that is often done incredibly poorly in ways that damage not only the environment but also are damaging to people in a very direct sense. 

It's one of the industries where slave labor still does exist. That's true. That's measurable. It's not something that I'm hypothesizing or that we speculate about. It is known to be a fact that slaves, including slaves who are minors in the most literal sense of that word, are still put to use in the chocolate industry. That's one reason why it has stayed so cheap for so long. 

Some of the other challenges in the industry are agriculture practices that have really harmed the environment, like slash and burn agriculture and other practices that are leading to deforestation. Increasingly, I think we're understanding how we can farm cacao in ways that avoid both human and environmental harm. There are lots of places around the world that are doing a great job of that. 

The problem is it dramatically increases the price of the beans. To accommodate those prices, people need to be willing to accept a higher price for chocolate. The chain of logic here is that in order for people to accept those higher prices, they need to understand the hidden costs of what keeps those prices low. Understanding more about the agriculture side and how cacao can be farmed effectively and in a way that is healthy for the environment and the farmers themselves helps people understand why it needs to be that price instead of leading consumers to fight back against it. 

Because it's all of us who lose if people aren't willing to pay those higher prices. Not only the consumers who don't get to eat their chocolate, but also the producers in the Western world like Toby and Alix at Nuance, who might have people not wanting to purchase their product, but then also the growers who are losing their livelihood. So, we all need to understand what's really going on here and find a balance where we're willing to accept the real cost of this product. 

HOST: How much should a box of chocolates or a bar of chocolate actually cost? 

CLARK: A well-made chocolate bar, sourced ethically from high quality beans should reasonably cost something like $25. That would probably be a cost that doesn't disguise many of the hidden costs. You do see some nice places; White Label is probably selling their bars for around $20. Nuance is selling theirs in the $10 to $20 range. Qantu is selling theirs for around $15. Those prices are very reasonable for that quality of chocolate. So, the conclusion is chocolate isn't an everyday commodity. Chocolate is a luxury product and that's how it should be priced. 

HOST: I think there's a lot of people that are having a little sticker shock right now because we are so used to it being $1 or $2. 

CLARK: I do feel like if people understood what they were paying for with that $2, not only in terms of the actual difference in the product itself versus a much nicer product, but also again, all those hidden costs, people might be more willing to accept that chocolate isn't a daily commodity. 

HOST: What do you think it would take for people to really get that idea? 

CLARK: I don't have a good answer here, but I think what's not helpful is lately there's been a movement to make chocolate out of things that aren't chocolate, out of rice bran or to make something that imitates chocolate. I'm not sure whether that's helpful or not, but it seems to me like the messaging of those products, which are still not super widely available, has been, “You deserve your chocolate, and some other people are doing things wrong so that you can't get it and chocolate is bad for the environment. So, we're going to solve that problem by making chocolate that's not chocolate. Then you can eat it guilt free, and you don't have to feel bad about the environment.” 

The problem is not the environment. Chocolate is not bad for the environment when it's done properly. The problem is the system of incentives, which leads to people farming it poorly because they're not properly supported and blah, blah, blah blah, blah. 

I guess I wish that there was a way we could sell those products in a way that's unrelated to chocolate. I don't have a problem with the products themselves. I have a problem with that messaging. Maybe there's a way that this opens up a market space for products that provide a daily, commodity-level product that satisfies the same place as chocolate. But I think it's harmful to use messaging that vilifies chocolate as we're opening up that space. 

HOST: This idea of chocolate that's not chocolate, I'm wondering in terms of trends, what is the next big trend that you're seeing in chocolate? 

CLARK: That's definitely probably the next big thing, people making cell-cultured chocolate or chocolate made from rice bran or anything that can get those same myart compounds and get a similar taste. Some of it's good, some of it's not. It's all really chemically interesting and interesting from a food science perspective. 

Another big trend in chocolate is the push to use chocolate as a health vehicle. As we talked about, chocolate isn't a naturally probiotic food. The organisms involved in the fermentation are eliminated during processing. But there are people adding back in probiotics to chocolate. There are people interested in making high fiber chocolate and using chocolate as a carrier for supplements or other health compounds. 

HOST: Making chocolate healthy. That's the dream, right? 

CLARK: Not my game, but it is for someone out there. 

OUTRO: That was CSU senior food scientist Caitlin Clark talking about the science behind chocolate. I'm your host, Stacy Nick, and you're listening to CSU's The Audit.