Chocolate Bytes: For the Love of Chocolate

Scientists Unlocking the Chocolate Genome

by Heather on June 28th, 2008

Scientists are still spending time on chocolate, except this time around it’s not to tell us that it’s bad this week, good the next! Apparently they’re analyzing the more than 400 million parts of the cacao bean in an effort to help diminishing crops and possibly make chocolate taste better.

The dissection of the genome began this past Thursday and is expected to last five years. Mars, Inc. is funding the program by more than $10 million which doesn’t seem like much when you learn that fungal diseases cost the farmers approximately $700 million annually.

The research will allow them to see what parts of the bean are susceptible and give the scientists and farmers a better understanding of the bean. They also plan to release their findings publicly when it’s over because there will be more information than just one company can cover. Good for Mars!

It’ll be really interesting to see how this pans out or if, like a fair amount of research projects that get a lot of attention when they first start, it’ll just fade into history without any conclusion.

I’m also conflicted on the taste aspect. Quite a few companies are already getting it right (and the ones who aren’t used to but care more about the bottom line now), and I think “improving” on the taste of chocolate means it’s simply going to change it. I think it’s great that they want to make the crops more fungus resistant but I just don’t see how you can improve on the taste. What do you think?

[image: sxc]

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