Suchitra’s chocozinc – a naturally fortified zinc chocolate in covid times

ABSTRACT

Chocolate has been a dietary supplement cherished by people of all ages. Home made chocolates are rare to get in many places. Zinc as a nutritional additive is being promoted as a booster of self-immunity to fight the corona pandemic. We tried to make a chocolate with natural additives rich in zinc along with the traditional method of making the chocolate. The normal chocolate was prepared according to described techniques. The zinc fortification was done with calculated doses of pumpkin seeds and decorticated sesame. (Zinc chocolate) The preparation of chocolate was similar with the same amounts of the other ingredients. After getting the recipe both were sent for zinc estimation. The zinc content in zinc chocolate was 34.65 mg/kg while in the other normal variety was only 13.42. The value was almost three times the normal chocolate. The taste was almost similar and cannot be distinguished by ten volunteers. We accept that we have not fed the volunteers with this recipe continuously and further estimate the blood zinc level to prove our results. We suggest that fortification with pumpkin seeds and decorticated sesame can be done in many recipes including chocolate to provide supplemental zinc in covid times.