Chocolate: A Food Group

Nowadays, there are four basic food groups:

Canned, Frozen, Fast Food, Instant

Some people add a fifth group: CHOCOLATE!

Chocolate Potato Candy

Potato Candy or Needhams! What are Needhams????

A Needham is a chocolate candy – dipped in dark chocolate, filled with confectioner’s sugar, butter, coconut, vanilla and mashed potatoes. Yes, mashed potatoes – it is the key element.

The vegetable tuber tempers the sweetness, and the butter and coconut adds richness. The mashed potato also makes the candy much more moist and not so sticky sweet.

Chocolate and vegetables, YES!!, two of the daily requirements.

Eat Dark Chocolate For Your Health

People who eat more dark chocolate, which is rich in several types of antioxidants, might have lower CRP levels. Researchers say eating dark chocolate regularly may help lower levels of inflammation, which is strongly associated with heart and blood vessel disease.

In a healthy population, even a small reduction of a low-grade inflammation with regular consumption of dark chocolate might have clinically relevant benefits in the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease.

The benefits were seen when people ate up to one 20-gram serving of dark chocolate every 3 days, but eating more chocolate wasn't more beneficial; in fact, effects on CRP levels "tended to disappear" at higher consumption levels, the researchers found.

Chocolate By the Numbers

65% of American chocolate eaters prefer milk chocolate

Hershey says 29 billion Kisses were made in 2007

2300 calories are in a 1 pound of milk chocolate

80 million Hershey Kisses are made daily

12 is the number of chocolate bars eaten to get as much caffeine that is in one cup of coffee

1000 chocolate bars are eaten in Switzerland for ever 1 that is eaten in China

Men Eating More Chocolate

Business men who are dealing with the economic state and market fallout; seem to be learning something from women; when it comes to using food to boost their mood.

Survey says, men are reaching for chocolate bars more frequently these days. All 750 of the men in the survey said they were eating more chocolate. Seems there is little that one can actually do about the economy and the disconnected feeling about the solutions. But buying a candy bar is something they can do.

Chocolate can be high in calories and fat but; it has many health benefits also. Besides containing antioxidants; studies have shown that eating chocolate every day is connected to better moods and reducing stress. Although no one knows if chocolate can cure the blues. Consuming chocolate temporarily boosts the feel-good chemicals in the brain, but some seem to think that it may actually make depression worse.

The survey of 750 men, age 25 to 65 in the U.S. found the following chocolates are the ones that men are reaching for while dealing with these tough times.

Snickers, Reese’s, Kit Kat Bars, Milky Way, Butterfinger, Baby Ruth, Three Musketeers, Mars, Oh Henry!, Hershey

Chocolate, the guys are finally getting it. Does that mean the ladies will have to share, or just find more places to hide the chocolates????

Chocolate Then and Now

A drink of the Old World nobility was enjoyed with milk and seasoning, such as black pepper, sesame seeds, anise, cinnamon, and almonds.

Chocolate was taken to new heights, and to a different level when sugar was added to the bitter, but sacred drink of the Maya.

The Industrial Revolution made chocolate available to everyone. Someone combined the melted cocoa butter (the fat occurs naturally in cocoa beans) with sugar, and cocoa powder to create the first solid eating chocolate.

Maybe it is all coming back around full circle – growing popularity for chocolate together with chili, and spices – a combination marketed as exotic, and premium despite its centuries old place of origin.

Chocolate (cacao) History

Cacao was very popular throughout South and Central America. It was a product that was used for medicine, currency and religious ceremonies that ranged from baptism to human sacrifice. Buried vessels found in Guatemala dating to 400 A.D., had chocolate inside them and recipes for the chocolate drinks were written on the pots.

The cacao beans were first transported from the New World to the Old in 1520 by Christopher Columbus. The royal court kept cacao a secret for about 100 years, before it started spreading through the rest of Europe. Now everyone knows about rich, sweet, wonderful chocolate.

Cacao – The Drink

Centuries of recorded history back up chocolate’s reputation for inducing swoons. The Mesoamerican societies discovered that the cacao (kah-KOW) trees pods contained edible ingredients.

As early as 1500 BC, the tree was known to grow wild in South America, and people were cultivating and eating the pulp that surrounded the cacao beans. We know that the pulp does not yield the chocolate, it is the pods bean that gives us the wonderful chocolate.

But far different from the creamy cocoa we dollop with cream, is the process thought to have been perfected by the Maya. They perfected the process of grinding the "beans" into a powder, which they combined with chilies, spices and water, to create a drink. It was either bittersweet or unsweetened (chocolate) and highly spiced and made with water not milk (milk-fat coats the tongue and masks the countless flavors that can be tasted in quality chocolate.)