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Chocolate with blood? What sounds really nauseating is the case in more chocolate than we might like. We enlighten you.
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© Michele Blackwell@Unsplash
Some of us have certainly tasted metallic taste more than once. And most of them probably also know where the taste comes from: yes, blood tastes like metal.
This does not mean that we are all blood-sucking vampires, but that we have already injured our mouths, be it on the gums while brushing our teeth, or we have bitten our tongue or lip.
In the kitchen, too, there is one or the other specialty that consists of raw, red meat or is made of blood, such as black pudding. But at least you know what you’re getting into.
Chocolate made of blood: what’s behind it?
The situation is different with sweets – in this case you don’t necessarily expect a metallic taste and that it contains blood …
The idea alone is certainly not just disgusting for some of us. But there was exactly such a chocolate on the market for a long time, more precisely on the Russian market in the Soviet Union, like Ripleys.com reported.
More precisely, these are hematogen bars that were touted as “healthy and tasty” in the 1920s. These were even recommended for children to consume, as it should help against the disease anemia.
Hematogenous
With this anemia, the body lacks hemoglobin and red blood cells, which should be absorbed through the bars. The brew made from beef blood and egg yolk was even given to soldiers as a fortification during the Great Patriotic War.
The chocolate bars that the children were offered consisted of condensed milk, syrup and beet sugar, but also of black food albumin, more precisely five percent beef blood.
In the USSR, these hematogen bars were even available in pharmacies. What sounds disgusting to us today was completely normal there. As rbth.com explains, this candy was a quick and cheap way to compensate for iron deficiency when meat was scarce.
For explanation
However, the blood in chocolate is not in it in raw form. The candy is called hematogen and was invented as a dietary supplement. The first idea came from the Swiss doctor Dr. Hommel 120 years ago. This was then taken up by the Soviet Union.
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