The evaluation of dark chocolate-elicited emotions and their relation with physico chemical attributes of chocolate

The aim of this 2021 study was to assess the emotions induced by eating dark chocolates of different origins including Venezuela, Peru, and Ghana. Another objective was to determine the association among overall acceptability of the chocolates, emotions induced, and the different chocolate attributes such as quantity of fatty acids and volatile compounds. The FaceReader 8 software was used to measure chocolate-elicited emotions, characterizing the participants’ facial expressions as either happy, neutral, sad, angry, surprised, scared, disgusted, contempt, valence, or arousal. The intensity of the “happy” emotion was the highest in the subjects out of every measured emotion. In many cases, the dark chocolates had a significant influence on the emotions induced, while the origin of the chocolates had a considerable effect on the levels of many volatile compounds, and on the contents of several main fatty acids. There were notable correlations between chocolate-triggered emotions, and separate fatty acids and volatile compounds. Overall, the origin of dark chocolate appeared to have a marked impact on emotions and physicochemical attributes of chocolates. Moreover, separate fatty acids and volatile compounds can be used as quality indicators since they have been linked with overall acceptability of the chocolates and with elicited emotions. [NPID: mood, chocolates, dark chocolate, fatty acids, diet, emotions, happy, happiness, aromatic]

Year: 2021

Reference: Bartkiene, E., Mockus, E., Mozuriene, E., Klementaviciute, J., Monstaviciute, E., Starkute, V., Zavistanaviciute, P., Zokaityte, E., Cernauskas, D., & Klupsaite, D. (2021). The Evaluation of Dark Chocolate-Elicited Emotions and Their Relation with Physico Chemical Attributes of Chocolate. Foods (Basel, Switzerland), 10(3), 642. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods10030642