Thursday, March 27, 2014

Why chocolate really is the secret to happiness...

Money may not buy happiness or grow on trees but when it comes to chocolate, it seems you can have both. Chocolate really does grow on trees and the chemical feel-good factor comes from the world’s most widely consumed psychoactive drug.

The Theobroma cacao is an evergreen that is native to tropical regions of the American continent and its seeds or beans are the source of the 4m metric tonnes of chocolate produced each year, and much of it from countries like the Ivory Coast and Indonesia.

Chocolate consumption goes back at least 4,000 years, to the peoples of present day Mexico: the Mayans, Aztecs and their predecessors, the Olmec. Just as today, they roasted the fermented seeds from cocoa pods, grinding the roast to a powder which they used to make a chocolate beverage, a cold, foaming drink that was very different to the substance we consume today. Sometimes they added honey to sweeten it and the Aztecs also added chili-pepper to give the phrase “hot chocolate” a whole new meaning.

Two thousand years ago the Mayan people, of what is now known as Guatemala, even came up with the original “chocolate teapot”, a ceramic vessel used to pour the foaming drink and archaeologists have found evidence that chocolate drinks were served up at the celebrations after the interment of sacrificial victims (though I’m not sure that the condemned would have been made any happier with a bar of chocolate). Full story...

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  2. The rich benefits of eating chocolate...
  3. Nestle chocolate brought to you by child slavery...
  4. Child slavery, the dark side of chocolate...
  5. Singapore's Wicked Chocs proposes Kama Sutra chocolate! Wow!
  6. Coffee and chocolate the key to long life?

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