Everything you ever wanted to know about natural health food and more!
Chocolate is harvested from the pods and beans of the cocoa tree, an evergreen that originated in the river valleys of South America. Native Central and South Americans valued cocoa so highly that they used cocoa beans as currency. Today about 3/4 of the world's chocolate is grown in West Africa and most of the rest in Brazil.
After cocoa beans are harvested, an initial phase of fermentation and drying is followed by low-temperature masting to bring out the flavor. Various increasingly complicated manufacturing processes follow, depending on whether the final product is to be solid chocolate or cocoa powder.
In 1828 the Van Houten family of chocolate came up with a screw press to remove most of the cocoa butter from the beans. Not only did it make a better drink, but they also found that by mixing the extracted cocoa butter back into ground cocoa beans, they could make a smoother, more solid paste that would absorb sugar. This process eventually led to solid chocolate.
An ounce of solid chocolate contains about 150 calories and 2 or 3 grams of protein. The original bean has significant amounts of vitamin E and the B vitamins. These nutrients, however, are so diluted in modern processed chocolate. Sweet or semi-sweet chocolate contains between 40% and 53% fat, or cocoa butter. Both chocolate and cocoa powder supply chromium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium, but fat and calories make chocolate an inappropriate source of these minerals.
A chemical composition that prevents it from quickly turning rancid made cocoa butter valuable as a long-lasting food and cosmetic oil. Chocolate's single-triglyceride fat composition means that it is either a liquid or a solid; natural chocolate cannot be spread like butter at room temperature.
The melting point of chocolate is just below human body temperature. White chocolate, a mixture of cocoa butter, milk solids, and sugar, contains no cocoa solids. Unlike milk chocolate, white chocolate does not keep well, because it lacks the compounds that prevent milk solids from becoming rancid over time.
Chocolate contains two related alkaloid stimulants, theobromine and caffeine. Commercial chocolate products contain no more than about 0.1% caffeine and are much less stimulating, volume for volume, than a cup of decaffeinated coffee. Unsweetened baking chocolate for home use is a more concentrated source of caffeine. Chocolate is also rich in phenylethylamine, a naturally occurring compound that has effects similar to those of amphetamine. In certain cases, it can also trigger migraine headaches in those sensitive to it.
Many people have a tendency to binge on chocolate after emotional upsets. Psychiatrists have theorized that "chocoholics" may be people who have a faulty mechanism for regulating their body levels of phenylethylamine; others attribute chocolate cravings to hormonal changes, such as those that occur during puberty or a woman's premenstrual phase. All in all, chocolate is a flavorful source of quick energy. Eating chocolate elevates people's moods. On the other hand, chocolate is high in calories and fat and may trigger migraine headaches to some people.