strange facts about chocholate

Chocolate Has Been Used As Money

ack in the Mayan times, the cocoa bean was actually used as currency and was considered to be worth more than gold dust. They would specifically restrict the cultivation of the beans so that their worth would not go down, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense and is probably why this idea did not last forever. Money growing on trees doesn't get a whole lot more literal than that. In fact, even during the Revolutionary war, soldiers were sometimes paid in chocolate.

White Chocolate Isn't Chocolate

It shouldn't shock anyone that the retail industry tells us a lot of little white lies, and white chocolate doesn't really taste like chocolate, so this isn't that surprising, but you guy,s white chocolate isn't technically chocolate at all. It's actually just made from sugar, cocoa butter, milk products, vanilla, and a fatty substance called lecithin. It's true that cocoa butter is a derivative from the cocoa bean, but white chocolate is made without the chocolate solids from the cocoa bean that make something chocolate.

The Chocolate Chip Cookie Was An Accident

One of the most delicious cookie creations of all time was completely unintentional. Before Ruth Wakefield threw some chocolate pieces into her cookie dough in 1930, everyone assumed that chocolate would melt when cooked, if they were thinking about it all. Ruth was out of baker's chocolate and used pieces of a Nestle bar broken up instead, thereby creating the first prototype of the chocolate chip cookie. She took the idea to Nestle which they gobbled up, and for the chocolate chip tip they awarded her a lifetime supply of chocolate. Personally I think she could have negotiated that deal a little better.

You Can Die From Eating Too Much Chocolate

Death by chocolate, that's not a joke I guess. Chocolate contains a stimulant called theobromine, and if you overdose on it you can experience heart failure, kidney damage, seizures, and dehydration. Supposedly you have to eat 22 pounds of chocolate to ingest this much, and let's be honest, it's pretty unlikely that you ever will. For a ten year old kid that would mean eating 1,900 of those mini Hershey bars, and even the best Halloween doesn't give that turnout. Dogs however, need way less to be affected by it, which is why you can't share your Twix with them.

There Are Bugs In Your Chocolate

The FDA has very specific rules about what is allowed in food, but they're specifics are not exactly as strict as you might imagine them to be. Anything that's processed is going to have a lot more opportunity for random insects to fall in/dive bomb, and FDA says anything more than 60 insect pieces per 100 grams of chocolate is a no go. But eight insect parts in the average chocolate bar is totally cool. In fact, it is believed that people who are allergic to chocolate are actually just allergic to cockroaches, because there are so many of them in there. Sorry :D

Chocholate

The history of chocolate begins in Mesoamerica. Fermented beverages made from chocolate date back to 1900 BC. The Aztecs believed that cacao seeds were the gift of Quetzalcoatl, the god of wisdom, and the seeds once had so much value that they were used as a form of currency. Originally prepared only as a drink, chocolate was served as a bitter, from a liquid, mixed with spices or corn puree. It was believed to have aphrodisiac powers and to give the drinker strength. Today, such drinks are also known as "Chilate" and are made by locals in the South of Mexico.

After its arrival to Europe in the sixteenth century, sugar was added to it, rendering it an aphrodisiac, and it became popular throughout society, first among the ruling classes and then among the common people. In the 20th century, chocolate was considered essential in the rations of United States soldiers at war.

The word "chocolate" comes from the Classical Nahuatl word chocolātl, and entered the English language from the Spanish language.Cultivation, consumption, and cultural use of cacao were extensive in Mesoamerica

 where the cacao tree is native. When pollinated, the seed of the cacao tree eventually forms a kind of sheath, or ear, 20" long, hanging from the tree trunk itself. Within the sheath are 30 to 40 brownish-red almond-shaped beans embedded in a sweet viscous pulp. While the beans themselves are bitter due to the alkaloids within them, the sweet pulp may have been the first element consumed by humans. Evidence suggests that it may have been fermented and served as an alcoholic beverage as early as 1400 BC.

While researchers do not agree which Mesoamerican culture first domesticated the cacao tree, the use of the fermented bean in a drink seems to have arisen in North America (Mexico). Scientists have been able to confirm its presence in vessels around the world by evaluating the "chemical footprint" detectable in the microsamples of contents that remain. Ceramic vessel with residues from the preparation of chocolate beverages have been found at archaeological sites dating back to the Early Formative (1900–900 BC) period. For example, one such vessel found at an Olmec archaeological site on the Gulf Coast of Veracruz, Mexico dates chocolate's preparation by pre-Olmec peoples as early as 1750 BC. On the Pacific coast of Chiapas, Mexico, a Mokayanan archaeological site provides evidence of cacao beverages dating even earlier, to 1900 BC.

Earliest evidence of domestication of the cacao plant dates to the Olmec culture from the Preclassic period. The Olmecs used it for religious rituals or as a medicinal drink, with no recipes for personal use. Little evidence remains of how the beverage was processed.

The Mayan people, by contrast, do leave some surviving writings about cacao which confirm the identification of the drink with the gods. The Dresden Codexspecifies that it is the food of the rain deity Kon, the Madrid Codex that gods shed their blood on the cacao pods as part of its production. The consumption of the chocolate drink is also depicted on pre-Hispanic vases. The Mayans seasoned their chocolate by mixing the roasted cacao seed paste into a drink with water, chile peppers and cornmeal, transferring the mixture repeatedly between pots until the top was covered with a thick foam.

By 1400, the Aztec empire took over a sizable part of Mesoamerica. They were not able to grow cacao themselves, but were forced to import it. All of the areas that were conquered by the Aztecs that grew cacao beans were ordered to pay them as a tax, or as the Aztecs called it, a "tribute". The cacao bean became a form of currency. The Spanish conquistadors left records of the value of the cacao bean, noting for instance that 100 beans could purchase a canoe filled with fresh water or a turkey hen. The Aztecs associated cacao with the god Quetzacoatl, whom they believed had been condemned by the other gods for sharing chocolate with humans. Unlike the Maya of Yucatán, the Aztecs drank chocolate cold. It was consumed for a variety of purposes, as an aphrodisiac or as a treat for men after banquets, and it was also included in the rations of Aztec soldiers.

Pueblo people, who lived in an area that is now the U.S. Southwest, imported cacao from Mesoamerican cultures in southern Mexico or Central America between 900 and 1400. They used it in a common beverage consumed by everyone in their society.