But such scientists had failed to account for the activity of bacteria in our gut. Some of these bacteria may come from mom, at birth. Others hitchhike into the gut along with foods and beverages. Indeed, yogurt can deliver some especially beneficial ones.
Studying good ‘bugs’
People tend to think of germs — bacteria and other microbes — as bad. But many of the bacteria that move into the human gut actually offer a host of benefits. There are some that help break down foods, releasing nutrients. Others fight disease-causing germs that might taint foods. Still more manufacture vitamins from the foods we eat, keep the immune system healthy or neutralize poisons produced by disease-causing germs. By adulthood, the body hosts 10 times as many bacterial hitchhikers (many of them health-promoting) as they do actual human cells.
Could these beneficial gut bugs chew up the non-digestible cocoa polymers into smaller, healthy bits? A research team led by John Finley and Maria Moore set out to explore that possibility. Finley is a food scientist at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. Moore is a college student who works in his lab.
They developed an artificial digestive tract — a series of test tubes in which reactions can take place. These mimic what happens as the gut breaks down food. The researchers added the cocoa powder used to make dark chocolate along with stomach and pancreatic enzymes — chemicals that speed up chemical reactions during digestion. (They didn’t use dark-chocolate candy because its fat and sugar could have interfered with the reactions and altered the results.)
After letting these materials interact, the scientists washed the sample. That left behind a lot of undigested material. That’s what the scientists would work with. And this is where their experiment turned a bit, well, nasty.