Hershey’s chocolate may have same ingredient as vomit

It may be the most popular chocolate in America but it is not that popular in Europe. Many complain that it has a tangy, vomit-like aftertaste.

Chocolate experts explain that the reason Hershey’s chocolate might have this taste is because it contains butyric acid. Butyric acid has an odour similar to vomit or body odour. It is found in animal fat, milk, parmesan cheese, rancid butter, stink bombs, body odour and vomit.

The Sea Shepherd’s weapon of choice is butyric acid. Bottled and thrown onto the decks of whaling ships, it spoils any whale meat it comes in contact with, and makes it almost impossible to work on the deck.

The reason Hershey’s chocolate has this butyric acid might be because they put their chocolate through controlled lipolysis. This uses butyric acid to allow the milk to go rancid in a controlled way. This is because, historically, in America the chocolate had to last longer and travel further than in Europe.

Around the 1930s Hershey’s founder Milton S. found a way to prevent the chocolate from going off in a secret treatment called the ‘Hershey Process’. The company is said to use butyric acid to stabilise milk in a process called lipolysis.

Butyric acid comes from the milk fats in the chocolate. In a process called lipolysis, the fatty acids in the milk decompose, resulting in a rancid, or “goaty” taste.
Gregory Ziegler, Ph.D., associate professor of food science