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An Apple a Day for Health? Mars Recommends Two Bars of Chocolate

After more than a decade of effort and a year of anticipation, Mars Inc. is finally rolling into stores with what it says is a healthy new sweet: a line of chocolate bars and chocolate-covered almonds.

The new confections, called CocoaVia, are produced at a factory here and serve as the centerpiece of a corporate quest to transform chocolate into a healthy indulgence. Here, chocolate is everywhere: a sweet and full aroma wafts from the conveyer belt; a machine drizzles milk chocolate onto dark-coated clusters in zigzag fashion; bars wade through a shallow river of liquid chocolate.

But it is the glob of granola, rice and flavanol-filled cocoa powder at the heart of the bar made here – injected with a burst of liquid-canola plant sterols – that distinguishes CocoaVia from the company’s M&M’s, Snickers and Dove bars. Flavanols are naturally occurring chemicals in cocoa that have antioxidant qualities; sterols are plant-based chemicals found in a variety of foods.

Flavanols are what set Mars on a scientific search: if it could show that they helped improve blood flow and lower blood pressure, then foods with them could potentially help prevent heart disease.

In developing CocoaVia, Mars decided to add another major additive, plant sterols, which ultimately allowed it to make the claim that CocoaVia is good for hearts and arteries. And that is one reason Mars is placing them in the health food aisles – near nutrition bars rather than candy – of retailers like Wal-Mart and Target.

Indeed, CocoaVia packages even encourage consumers to eat two servings a day to achieve the “maximum benefit.”

I really want to believe this.