NUTRITIONAL AND MICROBIOLOGICAL EVALUATION OF DARK CHOCOLATE COATED CHINESE CHESTNUT

Since years, China has loomed as increasingly important and the largest bowl of Chinese chestnut in the world. Though the consumption of chestnut has entrenched the graph steadily here in India too in the states like Uttarakhand, sharing borders with China. Therefore, the study aimed to evaluate the nutritional value and microbiological quality of the roasted and dark chocolate coated Chinese chestnut (Castanea mollissima).

The coating of dark chocolate proved to be nutritionally healthy as it improved the value of the chestnut. The results of the evaluation proved that the product developed is definitely an interesting nutritional food for people of all ages. It also increased the shelf life of the product as very minimum microbial activities were observed during duration of analysis. Also no pathogenic species like Salmonella were observed, which proves it to be safe for consumption for human beings.

As a whole, coating chestnut with the dark chocolate can prove to be an excellent strategy to add the value to chestnut, to spread awareness about the nut, minimize the loss of the exotic dry fruit every year, to introduce the choice of variety before people in a wide and different range.