Chocolate: tasty and healthy

All in all, the evidence suggests that eating a small amount of dark chocolate won’t do much harm, and may do some good. If you enjoy strong dark chocolate, you get more of the good stuff — cocoa — and less of the sugar, and your chocolate craving should be satisfied with less. If you substitute plain dark chocolate for junk food, you may well come out ahead health-wise. On the other hand, there are plenty of other, perhaps healthier, ways to boost your flavonoid intake: fruit and vegetables give you the added benefits of fibre, vitamins and minerals, while straight black or green tea give you a kilojoule-free antioxidant boost.

Expert tasters rated 22 brands of plain dark chocolate with 70-75% cocoa solids. A panel of 65 everyday tasters also rated 15 of the chocolates. Research evidence suggests that eating a small amount of dark chocolate won't do much harm, and may do some good. There are many compelling reasons to choose organic fair trade chocolate, and our taste tests show your taste buds and conscience can be happy.

To make dark chocolate, the cocoa liquor is mixed with more cocoa butter, sugar is added and often vanilla — beans or ‘flavour’. The product is then ‘conched’, a kneading process that improves its flavour and texture. The longer the conching, the better the quality of chocolate. Time is money, so some companies reduce conching time to reduce costs.

Finally, the chocolate is tempered — heated, cooled and heated again, with frequent stirring — which gives it a glossy finish and a good snap. Faults in this process show up in the appearance of the chocolate — rather than glossy, it’s dull, may have white spots (fat bloom) or a greyish film. It’s then poured into moulds to create the finished product.

The result of the searchings can be described in the following way:

The best overall was Valrhona Guanaja, followed by Michael Cluizel Noir de Cacao. Both are premium brands manufactured in France, and cost about $10–$15 per 100 grams. While these two were among the most expensive on test, a high price doesn’t guarantee a good score: Max Brenner 100% Pure and Dolfin Chocolat Noir were in the same price range and didn’t score particularly well.

Tied for third place were Lindt Excellence (also manufactured in France) and Moser Roth (German-made, available only from Aldi). These chocolates were equal top in our lay panel test and they’re a lot cheaper than the first two.

Some of the chocolates divided the panel – some loved them and some hated them. We’ve called these mixed emotions in the table.

While not at the top of the table, the organic and/or fair trade chocolates certainly held their own. Edel Bio is the best of them, and scored well overall. Also scoring well was Aldi’s Just Organic. Unfortunately, it’s going to be discontinued and will be replaced by a fair trade organic chocolate — it might be worth giving it a try to see if it’s as good as the Just Organic.