Chocolate Makers Cut Fat with Electricity
用电流使巧克力脱脂
Reducing fat from chocolate can gum up manufacturing equipment, making low-fat chocolate hard to produce—but an electric field can help.
由于传统脱脂工艺会使生产设备出现各种毛病，低脂巧克力难以生产，而已电场技术的出现改变了这种现状。
撰文 Christopher Intagliata
翻译 Meatle
审校 吴非
Chocolate may appear to have little in common with crude oil. But production for consumers requires that both substances travel through pipes. And the thicker—that is, the more viscous—they are, the more likely they'll clog up those pipes. So physicists at Temple University in Philadelphia have devised an unusual solution to avoid that sticky situation: apply an electric field.
巧克力与原油看起来毫无关联，但在生产过程中，两者都需要使用管道运输。流体越粘稠，它们就越可能堵塞管道。因此，来自费城天普大学（Temple University）的物理学家打算另辟蹊径，使用电场以避免巧克力在管道中粘滞的情况。
The process relies on a concept called electrorheology, in which a fluid can morph from a liquid to a JELL-O–like consistency, or the other way around, in an electric field. The field causes particles in the fluid, like paraffin and asphalt particles in crude oil, or cocoa and milk solids in chocolate, to act like tiny bar magnets, and line up into chains.
新的工艺基于电流变技术（electrorheology）。这项技术使用电场令液体变成果冻状的流体，或者逆向转换，把“果冻”变成低粘度液体。电场使流体中的颗粒，比如原油中的石蜡和沥青、巧克力中的可可和牛奶固体微粒，仿如微型磁铁棒那样，排成方向统一的长链。
And the team's latest finding could be a boon for the production of low-fatchocolate. Because cutting the fat content of chocolate tends to jam the pipes—the Augustus Gloop effect. [Willy Wonka clip]
该团队最近发现该技术有利于低脂巧克力的生产，因为使用以往的工艺，降低巧克力中的脂肪含量会使到管道堵塞，即奥古斯塔斯·格鲁普效应。
But that blockage can be cleared by applying an electric field of 1600 volts per centimeter, parallel to the chocolate's flow. The effect would allow chocolatiers to cut cocoa butter by 10 to 20 percent and still not clog the pipes. The study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [Rongjia Tao et al., Electrorheology leads to healthier and tastier chocolate]
然而，在管道上施加1600 V/cm的平行于巧克力流向的电场，能够清除管道中的堵塞。这种技术能够使巧克力的可可脂含量减少10-20%而不堵塞管道。该研究发表在《美国科学院院刊》（Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences）上。
The authors claim the resulting chocolate has a stronger cocoa flavor, and tastes quote, "wonderful." And since the study was funded in part by the Mars Chocolate company—and other chocolate makers are interested—the researchers say the tech may be commercialized within a year. At which point you can judge for yourself whether electric fields really make a better bar. Or if the taste is shocking.
作者称，该方法产出的巧克力有着更浓烈的可可风味，他以“美妙的味道”来形容。又因为该研究部分由玛氏公司（Mars Chocolate）资助，并且引起了其他巧克力生产商的兴趣，研究人员称该工艺的产品能在一年内上市。这意味着，我们能用自己的味觉来感受这种脱脂巧克力的味道，是美妙绝伦，还是无比雷人。
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