Chocolate What a Story

-Stories of chocolate dates back at least 4000 years.

-Cacao trees provide us with oxygen and lots of chocolate.

-With candy, cosmetics and drinks in North America, we consume over $16 billion in chocolate products.

-Slimy flavorsome seeds come from inside the cacao trees’ bean pods, better known as chocolate.

-Christopher Columbus took the cacao seeds to Spain in 1502. But they were not liked until sugar, cinnamon and vanilla was added.

-In 1828 Van Houten invented a process of removing about half of the fat to produce a fine cocoa powder.

-Around 1849 the first sweet edible solid chocolate was made.

-By adding cocoa into powdered milk Henri Nestle invented chocolate milk in 1867.

-West Africa produces about 40% of the worlds’ cocoa.

Chocolate has a rich wonderful taste and has mood-affecting chemicals, including endorphins, serotonin and phenyl ethylamine, which are the same as the body releases in response to romance.