The Creamy Chronicle of Chocolate
Did you know that chocolate was first cultivated and consumed by the Mayans and Aztecs? By the year 1000 A.D. the beans were being used as currency. The Aztecs believed that drinking chocolate, which was the undiluted, unsweetened liquor from the fermented cacao beans, would bring great wisdom, understanding and energy. Its use was reserved for the ruling and priestly classes.
Now for the Science Stuff
Cocoa butter is a triglyceride which begins to soften at 75 F, and melts at 97 F It is a highly saturated fat which consists principally of the fatty acid stearic acid, which is found in higher concentration in chocolate that in any other food. Stearic acid is rapidly converted by the liver into oleic acid, a monounsaturated that neither raises nor lowers serum cholesterol.
Chocolate does contain caffeine, but not much. Chocolate does not cause acne. It does contain a protein that inhibits bacterial growth on teeth, and since it melts at body temperature and melts off one's teeth, the sugar in chocolate does not cling to one's teeth.
The newest researches shows that the chocolate is cure for cancer.
Why We Love Chocolate
The loveliest thing about chocolate, the thing that makes us all so HAPPY when we eat it, is that it contains the highest concentration in any food of phenylethylamine, which is the chemical produced in the brain when a person is in love. Watch this space for more information about chocolate from Peterbrooke Chocolatier, where we fall in love with chocolate a new every day.
|
