Burning in the projection of the liver. Should real chocolate burn? Combustion and naturalness of the product

After seeing the famous video about burning chocolate, many people doubted the quality of the product sold on the market. There was no end to public outrage. Everyone was interested in why chocolate burns and whether it is natural. In this article, we will try to understand the veracity of the information and find out whether real chocolate should burn.

Traditional composition

There are not too many ingredients in real chocolate. It is made from grated cocoa beans, cocoa butter and powdered sugar. To create a variety of tastes, milk, cream, dried fruits, nuts and other fillings are sometimes added to the constant composition.

The most important component of this product is cocoa beans. Fresh grains taste very different from the finished product. They are not too dark in color, bitter and tart. In the countries where they are grown, beans are subjected to special drying on plantations. Then they are fried and crushed. During this, solid fat is released from the raw material, which is cocoa butter. Due to the presence of this component in the finished product, the tile retains its original shape and should not melt to a temperature of 32 degrees Celsius. But getting into the mouth, it begins to dissolve from the heat.
After the oil is pressed, the remaining raw materials are ground into cocoa powder, which we are used to seeing on sale. However, it is not used for the production of high-quality varieties. For these purposes, take the unsqueezed ground mass.

Expensive quality chocolate cannot contain less than 55% cocoa butter. Confectioners and technologists call bitter chocolate the most resistant to melting, it contains the largest amount of this component. To soften the taste and additional sweetness, milk is added and cocoa powder is not added.

We conduct an experiment

Many experimenters and just curious people set food on fire to find out how well they burn. Numerous videos from the Internet prove that cookies, smoked sausage, and dried fish burn perfectly. The videos clearly demonstrate how chocolate of various varieties and manufacturers burns (Babaevsky, Alenka, Russia - a generous soul, Milka, etc.), regardless of its price category. At the same time, the delicacy exudes a disgusting smell.

All these experiments convincingly show skeptics that both bitter and milk chocolate burn. They blaze equally brightly. Moreover, you can set fire to the tile with a lighter or with simple matches. For the sake of curiosity, you can conduct scientific research on your own. Just don't forget about safety. All manipulations are best done outdoors and away from flammable objects.

Real chocolate - burns or not?

Every educated person understands that any vegetable fibers can burn - provided that they do not contain too much moisture. And considering that chocolate contains oil, which burns like any other, this process is quite understandable. Therefore, the process of burning chocolate can be considered natural and natural. And this, despite the opinion of skeptics, on the contrary, is proof of its naturalness. Another thing is if it flares up sharply.

In addition, ingredients that have combustible properties and are able to support combustion are added to the composition of chocolate bars: ethyl alcohol, sulfur, magnesium, caffeine, saturated fatty acids. However, this is by no means harmful to health. In moderation, this confectionery, as nutritionists say, is even useful.

Combustion and naturalness of the product

Real natural chocolate, when exposed to fire, must first begin to melt, and only then ignite. This is due to the fact that the butter and sugar must first be heated. Some unscrupulous manufacturers replace cocoa butter with coconut or palm oil, while others add as much dry cake as possible. This leads to the fact that the product burns easily. After all, there is little moisture in it: from 5 to 12%.

How does dark chocolate burn?

If dark chocolate is natural, then it will begin to melt only at a temperature of 50 degrees Celsius. For the production of dark chocolate of the highest quality, the tempering method is used. In this case, cocoa butter crystallizes, and after cooling the mass, a shiny hard tile with a delicious taste and aroma is obtained. It is this product that is considered natural and highly valued by gourmets. During storage, tempered chocolate is less exposed to environmental factors and is therefore not prone to the appearance of a white coating.

So, only a fake confection of poor quality does not burn. If you still have doubts, then the following recommendations will help you choose really good and natural chocolate.

• You should pay attention to the expiration date. Natural chocolate does not keep longer than 6-8 months.
• If there are no impurities in the tile, then it will only melt in the mouth, and not in the hands.
• Before buying, you must carefully read the information on the label. A high-quality confectionery product does not contain protein additives and fats. It should contain only cocoa and cocoa butter.
• If you break the tile, you can hear a characteristic crunch.
• The surface of the product must be glossy and smooth.

Naturally, the authenticity of the product can only be verified in the laboratory, where experts will conduct special studies. However, we can say with confidence that real chocolate can and should burn.

For a perfectionist cook, it is important that all his dishes turn out to be perfect. Common problems in cooking have long been known to him. But when he becomes interested in a new dish or an unknown cooking method, he will have to spend a lot of time looking for the best culinary techniques. Myllyn Paras made it with oatmeal cookies. Why? Because we just love oatmeal cookies and we want to reduce the hassle of searching for the perfect recipe and techniques, and help cooks get the very best.

What is the perfect oatmeal cookie?

Before we embark on our journey of perfection, we must determine what the perfect oatmeal cookie looks like, its flavor, shape, and texture. The ideal oatmeal cookie has a rounded shape with even crispy edges, a ruddy color. The middle is soft and airy. The texture is porous and not too dry. The taste of sweet toffee with subtle creamy notes.

It is not easy to achieve such a result. After conducting a large-scale experiment, where more than 20 servings of oatmeal cookies were baked, we found exactly the recipe that will satisfy cooks striving for the ideal.

Baking oatmeal cookies scientifically

Traditional oatmeal cookie recipes start with the basic ingredients and techniques: butter and sugar are beaten together until creamy, then eggs, a mixture of flour, salt and baking powder are added, and oatmeal is added at the very end. All ingredients are mixed, then spread on a baking sheet and baked.

When cookies are baked, the following processes occur:

1. Butter becomes liquid. Under the influence of high temperatures, the dough acquires a softer texture. Butter, which is part of its composition, softens, releasing additional moisture. This liquid contributes to a flatter cookie shape, as well as better bonding of all dough ingredients.
2. The edges of the cookies harden. After the cookie has taken shape, its edges begin to become harder than the middle. This is due to the fact that the thin elements of the biscuit are more exposed to high temperatures and react faster to them, becoming crispy.
3. The cookies are getting bigger. The reaction of baking powder or baking soda with an acidic environment causes the formation of bubbles, which, when released, lift the cookies from the inside. Cane sugar can provide an acidic environment to a greater extent, which we will talk about a little later.
4. The sugar caramelizes. When melted, the sugar crystals turn into liquid, sticky caramel, which gives the cookies a sweet taste and allows them to keep their shape.
5. Egg whites react with starch. When proteins are exposed to high temperatures, the process of coagulation occurs. This means that protein chains are attracted to each other upon contact and form protein networks that hold water inside their structure. This reduces the fluidity of the protein, and the biscuits are too dry. But, since wheat flour is rich in starch content, which slows down the coagulation process, the cookies will not be overdried and their necessary structure will be built.
6. Maillard reaction occurs. The taste and smell of fried food is a chemical reaction called the Maillard reaction. These are the consequences of the combination of amino acids, which are contained in flour and eggs, with sugars, which break down into numerous elements as a result of exposure to high temperatures. In our case, furfural is released - an element that is responsible for the smell of freshly baked bread and an appetizing brown crust.
7. The cookies are getting cold. After the cookies are taken out of the oven, the cooking process is not over. As the cookies cool, the sugar that caramelized during the baking process solidifies. Thanks to this, oatmeal cookies are crispy. During cooling, excess air may also escape from the cookies, which will help reduce their volume.

Baking temperature for oatmeal cookies

The temperature of the oven will also determine how the oatmeal cookies turn out. If you bake at a low temperature, then there will be more chances that this will lead to spreading of the dough, the cookies will turn out to be wider. At high temperatures, from 170 ° C and above, the cookies spread less. But do not forget that it can burn out, so you should not overdo it with the temperature either. In our opinion, the temperature of 170-175 °C is optimal. Then 15 minutes will be enough for the oatmeal cookies to bake evenly and not burn.

Proportions of ingredients

In our experiment, we will start from the proportions of the ingredients that were identified by analyzing the culinary sites on the Internet, then we will have to replace or remove one of the components in order to evaluate the resulting result.

A standard oatmeal cookie recipe is 100g butter, 2/3 cup sugar, 1 cup oatmeal, 1 cup wheat flour, 1 egg, ¼ teaspoon salt, and ½ teaspoon baking powder. All ingredients are mixed, the dough is kneaded, cooled in the refrigerator to ensure better bonding of the ingredients, spread on a baking sheet and baked for 15 minutes at a temperature of 170 ° C.

Baking oatmeal cookies without wheat flour

Products made from wheat flour are dearly loved in every family. But due to the high content of carbohydrates - 70 g per 100 g of flour, many refuse to eat this product, referring to its high calorie content. In addition, premium wheat flour undergoes lengthy processing and purification processes, during which many useful substances are lost. On the other hand, flour contains a large amount of gluten, which helps to bind all the ingredients in the dough and keep the baked goods in shape.

Let's see if oatmeal can completely replace wheat flour when baking homemade oatmeal cookies. Oat flakes of different sizes have a greater or lesser degree of stickiness due to their structure. Large flakes are denser and harder, they will react less actively with the rest of the dough ingredients. Medium and instant oat flakes are more responsive in this regard, the soft texture of the flakes and the smaller size will allow them to impart a more sticky texture to the dough.

We will bake cookies from all types of oatmeal and analyze the results.

1. Cookies made from large oatmeal without wheat flour

Cooking porridge with milk is no longer a problem. Learn from our article how to avoid common cooking mistakes.

Burning in the liver area is an alarming symptom that requires close attention. An unpleasant burning sensation in the right hypochondrium can occur after intense physical exertion, the use of medicines, heavy meals, etc., but sometimes it occurs spontaneously, and it would seem, completely without reason.

If you have experienced the described feeling, you should not postpone a visit to the doctor - sometimes burning pain in the liver area is a symptom of serious disorders.

It is worth noting that discomfort in the right side does not always indicate liver pathology - pain that occurs in other internal organs, in particular, in some parts of the gastrointestinal tract and the genitourinary system, can radiate to this area.

How to understand that burning occurs in the liver? What diseases does this symptom indicate, and how to treat them? We will talk about all this in this article.

Pathogenesis

Pain or burning sensation in the right hypochondrium is associated with liver diseases in many people. It is worth remembering that most diseases of this organ, contrary to popular belief, are not at all accompanied by any pain. The fact is that the liver parenchyma is devoid of pain receptors. However, the capsule, the connective tissue sheath of the organ, can hurt. In particular, it is very sensitive to stretching, therefore, when complaining of pain in the right hypochondrium, the doctor may suspect an enlarged liver (when the organ enlarges, it stretches the capsule, resulting in pain). In this case, irradiation of pain in the right shoulder and the area of ​​​​the scapula is possible.

Especially strong burning pains appear when sand or stones move along the bile duct. In this case, the pain is paroxysmal, lasting from a couple of minutes to several hours.

For the same reason, pain in the side occurs with unusually strong physical exertion. The fact is that hepatocytes accumulate glycogen - a source of energy. With intense physical activity, the body needs additional energy, so the blood to the liver is significantly accelerated. This causes an increase in its volume, and as a result - stretching of the capsule and pain in the side.

Often a burning sensation in the right side is due to a malfunction of the gallbladder.

Associated symptoms

If burning in the liver is caused by a violation of the structural and functional state of the gallbladder and the liver itself, the patient also notices a number of accompanying symptoms, including:

• fast fatiguability;
• recurrent headaches;
• poor appetite, and as a result - weight loss;
• insomnia;
• causeless skin itching;
• yellowing of the skin and mucous membranes;
• discoloration of feces;
• dark urine.

It is worth noting that violations of the liver for a long time can proceed secretly, without clear manifestations. Usually, pain and burning appear only in the later stages of the disease.

Other reasons

It happens that the listed symptoms are not observed, and the clinical picture of the disease is completely different. In this case, other causes of burning that are not related to the state of the liver and gallbladder should be suspected. Among them, the most common are:

1. Intercostal neuralgia- a neurological disease, accompanied by periodic paroxysmal pain in a certain area of ​​the chest; coughing or sneezing can provoke an attack.
2. Osteochondrosis of the intervertebral discs of the lumbar- accompanied by aching pain in the back, as well as on the right or left in the side.
3. Diaphragm diseases- connective tissue septa separating the chest from the abdominal cavity. With inflammation of the diaphragm, as well as the presence of a hernia, neoplasms, etc. there is severe pain under the right or left rib (depending on the location of the focus of inflammation).
4. Various kidney diseases(for example, pyelonephritis of the right kidney).
5. Discomfort in the right hypochondrium is often felt by pregnant women.. It must be remembered that the growing fetus displaces the internal organs of the mother, and in the later stages (7-9 months), the mother's liver is located much higher than usual. Thus, heaviness and burning in the side of a pregnant woman is more often associated not with liver diseases, but with a violation of the intestines.
6. Burning pain in the lower abdomen is a symptom of appendicitis. Interestingly, with inflammation of the appendix, pain is first felt in the navel, and only then “moves” lower and to the right.
7. Long-term use of drugs that have a hepatotoxic effect. In particular, antipyretic and analgesic drugs (aspirin, analgin, ibuprofen and others), as well as contraceptive hormonal drugs, have an extremely negative effect on the state of hepatocytes.

Thus, the causes of burning sensation in the right hypochondrium can be very diverse.

Possible diseases

Among diseases of the liver and gallbladder, accompanied by a burning sensation in the right hypochondrium, the following can be distinguished:

Finding out the cause of a burning sensation in your side is almost impossible on your own - you will need the help of a qualified specialist. The diagnosis is made on the basis of the patient's complaints, as well as the results of some studies (a general clinical blood test, liver tests, ultrasound may be required, in rare cases, a biopsy).

Treatment

The goal of treatment is not just to relieve pain, but also to destroy the cause that caused it. In view of this, it becomes clear that taking painkillers has nothing to do with the treatment of the liver. Moreover, their intake can aggravate the patient's condition, since almost all painkillers have a hepatotoxic effect.

You should not reduce the burning sensation in the right side with anesthetics without first discussing this with your doctor - you can provoke a deterioration in the condition of the liver.

Two hundred years ago, a Belgian joker told the readers of one of the magazines an amazing story about a gluttonous duck that ate 19 of its relatives. Robert Corneliss demonstrated with a simple example how gullible most people are - everyone and sundry discussed the phenomenal capacity of waterfowl. Since then, deliberately unreliable information published in the press has been called a "newspaper duck", and the sensational video with burning chocolate is another example of artificial indignation of public opinion. Why does a chocolate bar burn, and what are they slipping us instead of natural products? Let's figure out if good chocolate should burn.

What is chocolate made from?

There are few ingredients in chocolate: powdered sugar, cocoa butter and cocoa liquor. Milk, flavorings, nuts, fruits, fillings are added to the mandatory composition.

The main part of chocolate is cocoa beans, consisting of a core and a shell (cocoa shell). Fresh beans do not resemble the usual cocoa, they are pale, tart and bitter. The familiar aroma and flavor comes from the cocoa beans being dried in the plantations. Dry beans are cleaned, roasted and crushed. More than half of the resulting grist consists of fat, which we used to call cocoa butter. It is a solid that only softens at +32°C, so the chocolate retains its shape at room temperature and dissolves in the mouth without residue. After squeezing the oil from the cocoa nibs, cake remains - it is used to make cocoa powder, well known to everyone since childhood. But in the manufacture of high-quality chocolate, unpressed cocoa nibs and cocoa butter are used, not powder.

Good chocolate contains at least 55% cocoa butter, the higher the content, the more expensive and tastier the chocolate. There is a lot of grated cocoa in dark chocolate, which is dark in color and stable when heated. Milk chocolate has milk powder, while white chocolate has cocoa butter and milk, but no cocoa liquor. Manufacturers keep their recipes and technologies secret, but they cannot do without the main ingredients.

Experiment: Do dark and milk chocolate burn?

After a video posted by a woman from Yekaterinburg, tests of the refractory properties of chocolate were captured and posted online by several other experimenters. The flash mob covered not only Russia, where the Generous Soul brand is one of the most popular, Ukrainians enthusiastically set fire to Roshen and Svitoch chocolates, Belarusians burned Kommunarka, everyone checked whether they really fed us combustible products. There was not a single failure - all varieties ignited, including Swiss and Belgian expensive chocolates.

To be fair, let's say that not only Alenka and chocolate bars are burning. Dry smoked sausage burns no worse than a torch, a ram fire burns to the ground, even dry biscuits and bagels modestly illuminate the night with a quiet flame. But public outrage and rhetorical calls to restore order and not poison the people did their job - we joined the chocolate flash mob to see "this horror" with our own eyes and smell the disgusting spirit of the fried dessert.

In order not to wake the fire alarm, the experiment was carried out on the street. The tests involved a commission of three people, chocolates "Alenka", "Babaevsky", Alpen Gold and "Roshen-brut", a lighter and a box of matches (just in case).

We managed to set fire to all the chocolate bars, although the milky Alenka burned brighter than the black Roshen one, which immediately began to melt, and the fire was barely noticeable. The smell of burnt chocolate was not impressive, it was no worse than the smell of burnt bread or sausage. The chocolate from a match and a lighter burns in exactly the same way, if you want to repeat the experiment, break off a large enough piece so as not to burn yourself.

Should real chocolate burn?

Every person with a high school diploma should understand that all plant fibers burn if they do not have too much moisture. In addition to cocoa nibs, chocolate contains at least 50% cocoa butter, which burns like any other fat. So the burning of natural chocolate is normal, unlike the ignition of, for example, cottage cheese or yogurt. Chocolate should burn, this speaks more about its natural composition than about the presence of extraneous additives.

The recipe of some varieties suggests a minimum content of ethyl alcohol. In Russian Chocolate, by the way, this ingredient is present in a microscopic amount that cannot harm even a child. In addition, sulfur, magnesium, magnesium, phosphorus, copper, iron, theobromine, caffeine and saturated fatty acids are present in cocoa. A set of these substances makes chocolate a combustible product, but certainly useful in reasonable quantities.

How natural chocolate burns

In the famous video, chocolate does not melt, and this is really alarming. Such burning can be explained by the replacement of mashed cocoa powder, that is, ground cake. Manufacturers add cocoa powder to reduce the cost of production, but it is much worse when cocoa butter is replaced with coconut or palm oil.

Cocoa cake or cocoa powder could not provide a bright and long burning, but this component absorbs cocoa butter and sugar well. Good dark chocolate, when heated with fire from a lighter or match, must first melt, and only then catch fire - it takes some time for the butter and sugar to heat up. If there is little fat, the chocolate bar burns like a paraffin candle.

Does dark chocolate burn?

Dark chocolate is the process of crystallization of cocoa butter. Natural dark chocolate begins to melt at a temperature of about +50°C. After melting, the chocolate is cooled and a product of the highest quality with excellent taste is obtained. Tempered chocolate becomes glossy and hard, chocolatiers call it real. The surface of such chocolate is not covered with a white coating, the molten icing lays down in an even layer and quickly hardens. That is, the ability of dark chocolate to change properties when heated has long been known and is used in practice.

If you are still worried about the question of which chocolate does not burn, the answer is that it is not real. If the chocolate bar melts but does not show any signs of ignition, it is fake. We hope that soon interest in this topic will dry up, and people will stop striking matches and lighters to record another report. Testing chocolates with fire is strange and dangerous if a child wants to repeat the experience. There are more reliable ways to choose a natural and high-quality product.

How to choose natural chocolate

• Read the labels on the packaging. Real chocolate should contain only cocoa butter and grated cocoa beans, without protein additives and other fats.
• The shelf life cannot exceed 6-8 months.
• Chocolate without extraneous oils does not smear in the hands and melts in the mouth.
• The surface of the tile is shiny and smooth.
• When breaking, a crunch is heard.

It is possible to speak objectively about the quality of chocolate after laboratory tests using special methods, and ignition does not apply to methods for determining the authenticity of a product. But natural chocolate must burn - this does not contradict the laws of chemistry and physics.