Skip to main content

Mmmmmm...Chocolate

When you choose your fruits, vegetables, meat, bread...make it the very best you can afford. Chocolate is no exception. That way you’ll really savour it.

So what determines a good quality chocolate? It all amounts to a hill of beans...cocoa beans, that is.

The cocoa beans from the cacao tree are ground into a paste called chocolate liquor, which is then used to make either cocoa or solid chocolate.

Aztecs and Spanish explorers were drinking chocolate back in the 1500's. The first US chocolate factory opened for business in Massachusetts in 1765, but it was the Swiss who perfected milk chocolate over a century later.

Chocolate contains caffeine and a close relative called theobromine, which are both stimulants. In fact Hersheys first extracted theobromine in the 1940's and sold it to Coca-Cola.

If you've ever wondered why dogs get their own blend of chocolates, it's because their bodies metabolise these chemicals very slowly. Fido may have a heart attack if you give him a human chocolate!

Chocolate has antioxidants and phenols, which are good for the heart but, as we all know, chocolate is high in saturated fat and eating too much will put weight on. A bar of milk chocolate will deliver protein, riboflavin (vitamin B2) calcium and iron. Some studies show that chocolate mimics opioids in the brain and that makes us feel nice after a session.

In addition to cocoa bean quality, good chocolate contains cocoa butter as a major ingredient. It's the natural fat from the bean and you'll also find it in soaps and cosmetics listed as theobroma oil

Many European countries take great pride in using quality ingredients and consider chocolate from the UK to be inferior because vegetable fat is used instead of real cocoa butter.

The top quality tip is to see where cocoa butter appears on the ingredients list. Makers usually list in most-to-least order. Price is generally a good indicator of quality, as cocoa butter is not cheap.

By the way, white chocolate is not chocolate at all - it is cocoa butter, milk and sugar.

BodytalkMagazine.com

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

ASEAN pushes for resumption of N. Korea nuke talks

ASEAN and friends: Foreign Ministers from left, Vietnam's Pham Gia Khiem, South Korea's Kim Sung-hwan, Japan's Takeaki Matsumoto, Indonesia's Marty Natalegawa, and China's Yang Jiechi, hold hands during a group photo at the opening session of ASEAN Plus Three Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia, Thursday. (AP/Dita Alangkara) Associated Press, Nusa Dua | Thu, 07/21/2011 2:19 PM Foreign ministers from 10 Southeast Asian nations are calling for a speedy resumption of talks aimed at convincing North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program. China, the US, Japan, South Korea and Russia had been negotiating since 2003 to persuade Pyongyang to dismantle the program in exchange for aid and other concessions. The North pulled out of the talks about two years ago after being censured for launching a long-range rocket. It has indicated a willingness in recent months to return to the table. The 10-member Association of Southeast As...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dangdut divorcees to reinvigorate scene

The Jakarta Post | Thu, 07/21/2011 9:47 PM JAKARTA: Wanting to reinvigorate dangdut, Anang Hermansyah has added some color to the genre by forming Tiga Kembang (Three Flowers), a trio of divorced dangdut singers. He wants dangdut to become the music of Indonesia all over again, he said. Cici Paramida, Ikke Nurjanah and Kirstina were Anang’s picks for the dangdut group. But, wanting such huge names, how did he make this dangdut supergroup happen? “I was hanging out with my friend Irvan Nat. Irvan said, ‘this song Goyang Sayang would be great if it was sung by those three, can this be arranged?’ Then Irvan Nat called each of them,” Anang said as reported by kapanlagi.com. But the song was not written for Tiga Kembang but for Krisdayanti and Siti. Because the latter project ended up not happening, the song was given to Tiga Kembang. Anang said Goyang Sayang was filled with nuance, the rhythm of the song upbeat and fresh. “I witnessed the development of dangdut and how it beca...
Post a Comment
Read more