“Soluble” Cocoa
Whilst Forster states that treated cocoa is the most digestible, experts are not in agreement as to which is the more valuable foodstuff, the pure untouched cocoa, or that which is treated during its manufacture with alkaline salts. The cocoa so treated is generally described as “soluble,” although its only claim to this name is that the mineral salts in the cocoa are rendered more soluble by the treatment. It is also sometimes incorrectly described as containing alkali, but actually no alkali is present in the cocoa either in a free state or as carbonate; the potassium exists “in the form of phosphates or combinations of organic acids, that is to say, in the ideal form in which these bodies occur in foods of animal and vegetable origin” (Fritsch, Fabrication du Chocolat, p. 216).