DNA Test Could Detect Counterfeit Chocolate
Chocolate, nom nom nom Dreamstime Life's like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get... including whether or not your favorite confection contains the top-quality cacao beans it advertises, or ones of lower quality. As demand grows for high-end chocolate, made from the choicest of beans from specific locations, so too does the practice of mixing in lower-priced substitutes. Genetic tests have been used to determine origins of coffee and related products, but chocolate has proved more difficult. But a new test could change that. As Discovery News reports: Researchers at the USDA's agricultural research station in Greenbelt, Md., figured out how to overcome this problem using small SNPs or single nucleotide proteins ("snips") that make up unique fingerprints of different cacao species and hybrid varieties... Zhang, who...