Lower-fat chocolate is now possible thanks to electrical engineering

Physicists at Temple University in Philadelphia have come up with a novel approach to manufacturing chocolate that could allow for lower fat content. Current techniques rely on a relatively high fat percentage — as much as 40 percent — to keep chocolate in liquid form during production, but the new method detailed in a study published today suggests that can be circumvented with the clever application of an electric field.

Electrorheology, as this field of research is called, is concerned with the deformation and flow of matter when affected by electricity. What the Temple researchers found was that an electric field applied in the flow direction of a liquid stream of chocolate helped to reduce its viscosity along that direction....