How chocolates benefits you ?

Is chocolate good for you? Yes! The health benefits of chocolate are many... assuming we're talking about the same thing, that is. I'm talking about chocolate in its purest form - as close to the bean as you can get. If you want me to tell you a Milky Way bar is good for you, I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed.
 
Some of you may be thinking that a dark chocolate bar is bitter or yucky. If you aren't a fan of dark chocolate, you've probably never had the good stuff. So just what are the amazing health benefits of chocolate? Most notably, chocolate is a champion antioxidant. Antioxidants help rid the body of free radicals, nasty little molecules running amok in your body which cause aging and disease. Antioxidants bond to free radicals and whisk them from your body via digestion and other means.

The bottom line is that indulging in a small amount of dark chocolate might be the perfect dessert - satisfying your sweet tooth while treating your body to the many health benefits of chocolate. So next time you're craving dessert, reach for the dark chocolate, and hold the guilt.

Where does chocolate comes from ?

Where does chocolate come from? Actually, it DOES grow on trees. It all starts with a small tropical tree, the Theobroma cacao, usually called simply, "cacao." (Pronounced ka-KOW. Theobroma is Greek for "food of the gods.") Cacao is native to Central and South America, but it is grown commercially throughout the tropics. About 70% of the world's cacao is grown in Africa.

A cacao tree can produce close to two thousand pods per year. The ridged, football shaped pod, or fruit, of the cacao grows from the branches and, oddly, straight out of the trunk. The pods, which mature throughout the year, encase a sticky white pulp and about 30 or 40 seeds. The pulp is both sweet and tart; it is eaten and used in making drinks. The seeds, were you to bite into one straight out of the pod, are incredibly bitter. Not at all like the chocolate that comes from them.

History of Cacao

Chocolate history starts out in Latin America, where cacao trees grow wild. The first people to use chocolate were probably the Olmec of what is today southeast Mexico. They lived in the area around 1000 BC, and their word, "kakawa," gave us our word "cacao." Unfortunately, that's all we know. We don't know how (or even if) the Olmec actually used chocolate.

We do know, however, that the Maya, who inhabited the same general area a thousand years later (from about 250-900 AD), did use chocolate. A lot. And not just internally. It is with the Maya that chocolate history really begins.

The cacao beans were used as currency. 10 beans would buy you a rabbit or a prostitute. 100 beans would buy you a slave. Some clever person even came up with a way to counterfeit beans - by carving them out of clay. The beans were still used as currency in parts of Latin America until the 19th century!