Burn calories

'Chilli' chocolates to help burn calories

It sounds just too good to be true - cakes and chocolate bars that help you burn off calories, courtesy a tasteless extract from chilli peppers.

This "miracle" extract, known as dihydrocapsiate (DHC), speeds up the body's metabolism, helping it use up more calories. It is already sold in the form of diet supplement pills in the US and Japan, but it could be about to be used as a food additive in Britain, the Daily Mail reports.

The ingredient is one of several chemical compounds known as capsinoids found in a particular variety of chilli.

Now a Japanese food firm Ajinomoto has submitted plans to the Food Standards Agency watchdog with the aim of adding it to chocolate bars, desserts and ready meals targeted towards slimmers.

It is now up to the European Commission to decide whether it can be sold. If approved, products with DHC could appear on shelves very soon.

According to the manufacturer, a person weighing around 95 kg consuming the recommended portions of foods containing DHC would probably burn off only 50 extra calories a day - the equivalent of a digestive biscuit.

Ajinomoto plans to make the ingredient synthetically as only very small amounts can be derived from chilli peppers.