This news is a bit old, but it still cracks me up whenever I think about it. Some researchers in England recently published the results of their study comparing the stimulative effect on the human brain of eating chocolate, as compared with “a passionate kiss”. It was written up in an article on the BBC News web site.

Couples had their heart rates and brains monitored whilst they first melted chocolate in their mouths and then kissed…chocolate caused a more intense and longer lasting “buzz” than kissing.

Yaaawn, right? What I find amusing is not what they studied, but what they obviously wanted to study, but were too cowardly to actually try.

An anonymous source within the research team confirms my suspicions, saying this about their original concept:

We wanted to take it further, you know? Really push the limits. We wanted to go beyond Last Tango in Paris.

Oops. That wasn’t really one of the researchers; that was Mickey Rourke talking about some stupid movie he did back in the 80′s. But my point is this: They probably won’t admit it, but we all know that’s what they were thinking! Who cares about comparing chocolate to a kiss? Nobody. They spent their time and someone’s money to answer a little question that nobody was asking, while ignoring the big one. Come on scientists! Ask yourselves, “What would Madame Curie have done?!”

In their defense, though, imagine the meeting where they’re presenting their research proposal:

Researcher: We’d like to hook people up to the hospital’s astonishingly expensive brain imaging equipment and have other people perform sex acts on them. Then we’ll give them candy.

Boss: …

Researcher: Uhm. OK. How about if the people aren’t necessarily the Dallas Cowboy Cheer Leaders?

Boss: …

Researcher: Well, then. I see you have some reservations. Second base? No nudity?

Boss: …

Researcher: Aww maaan! OK, OK, OK then. Just kissing.

Boss: And they have to be married!   To each other!

Thus does humanity remain in a fog of ignorance and superstition. Someday, perhaps in a more enlightened age, science will settle the question of whether chocolate is better than sex. But in the mean time, I suggest we all conduct our own experiments.

Sure, go ahead. Try this at home!

That title has equal numbers of vowels and consonants. Does that seem a bit demented to you? Well, I’m not suffering from dementia yet and I have a plan to avoid it even when I get really, really old (which I also plan to do). The key to my new scheme is epicatechin. Epicatechin is a nutrient contained in – you guessed it – the cacao bean and thereby (some) chocolate.

You see, there are these people called the Kuna, who live in Panama. Other people couldn’t help but notice that, besides their groovy outfits and pleasant demeanor, the Kuna people tend to live for a long time. (Check out the photo below of  an 86 year-old Kuna woman!)

OK, she's not really 86 years old. But I bet she'll still be cute when she is.

In addition they have extremely low rates of dementia, stroke, heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. One scientist, a dude named Dr. Norman Hollenberg, of Harvard Medical School, posits that the source of this astounding good health is likely the fact that they drink as many as 40 cups per week of cocoa. Wow, imagine how many marshmallows the local Walmart must sell!

More about epicatechin:

• a type of flavinoid
• its antioxidant properties may help prevent cancer
• thought to increase nitric oxide in the blood,  improving circulation
• some teas, wine, fruits, and vegetables also contain epicatechin

Epicatechin has a bitter taste, so it’s often removed when processing cacao beans into chocolate or cocoa powder. The Mars company (maker of M&Ms) say they’ve developed a method for preserving the favanoids in the manufacture of chocolate. They apparently mark their flavinoid-preserved products with a “Cocoapro” logo. Interesting… Here’s what their website says about it:

Cocoa flavanols can be easily destroyed during normal cocoa and chocolate processing.  Building off of nearly two decades of research, Mars, Incorporated scientists have perfected a process to reduce the cocoa bean’s exposure to high temperatures, helping to protect the cocoa extract.  This proprietary, patented Cocoapro® process guarantees that the cocoa extract in CocoaVia™ has consistent levels of flavanols.

So it sounds like it’s heat that destroys the flavinol. I seem to recall a mention of drying the cacao beans at lower temperature in the video in this post.

I was in a shop the other day drooling over their selection of gourmet chocolate (I really should take a bib with me). Looking at the ingredient lists on the backs of the packages I noticed that many, including some of the supposedly high-grade, expensive stuff have “soya lecithin” listed as an ingredient. OMGWTF, I thought – surely it signals the end of the world (The Chocpocalypse!) when even the supposedly top class chocolate makers are debasing their product with the same kind of stuff you find in a Twinky!

So I went on a mini quest to get to the bottom of this (possible) outrage against humanity. Here’s what I found out:

• soy lecithin extracted from the oil of the soy bean
• it’s a natural emulsifier – emulsifier is like a thinner, makes a thick flow more freely
• they use it in chocolate to help prevent the cocoa-solids separating from the cocoa butter
• using lecithin allows the manufacturer to get by with less cocoa butter
• soy lecithin is used as a nutritional supplement because it contains choline, which is good for the heart and aids brain development
• some (but not all) people with soy protein allergies also have reactions to soy lecithin

Conclusion: Sounds like corner-cutting to me. I’d prefer not to have this in my chocolate, but since I’m not allergic to soy it won’t stop me from eating it as long as the chocolate still tastes good. But if you have a soy allergy, you might want to look at the ingredients before buying and stick to the lecithin-free varieties.

Sometimes I see and hear both the beans and the powder referred to as either “cocoa” or “cacao”. They seem to be used interchangeably, and I thought it might be a Europe vs. Americas thing. Or maybe pronouncing and spelling  it “cacao” is just a way for the snootier among us to differentiate themselves from the plebs. I decided to get to the bottom of this, even if it means I have to choose sides.

First stop – the dictionary. According to Webster’s, cacao refers to the beans and cocoa is the powder made from the beans (with the oil/cocoa-butter removed).

Everyone seems to agree that “Theobroma cacao” is the precise name for the tree that produces the cacao bean.

Next we visit the World Cocoa Foundation. They seem to have a difference of opinion with Mr. Webster. They agree on the tree being cacao, but the call the fruit of the cacao tree cocoa pods and cocoa beans. You’d normally assume that with their name, they’re a real authority, but then again, maybe they’d sing a different tune if they were called the World Cacao Foundation.

So far, nothing is settled, so let’s try one more authority, the All Chocolate web site. The site is “sponsored” (= owned)  by Hershey’s – not sure if that implies any bias or not. Here’s what they have to say:

It is generally agreed among chocolate experts that the correct term for referring to the beans is “cacao” while the right word for the powder made from them is “cocoa”

Alright then, it’s certainly not unanimous, but let’s define on the official Friends With Chocolate stance on the cacao vs cocoa debate:

If anyone cares to debate the issue, comments are open. On the other hand, you say cocoa, I’ll say cacao, and let’s call the whole thing off…

I recently, browsing al local imported foods shop, I came across chocolate bars from a chocolate maker I had never heard of, “Rausch Platagen Schokolade”. There were a few different varieties with different percentages of cocoa. I got the milk chocolate with 43% cocoa, called Puerto Cabello. The short review: This choc rocks! It was rich and creamy, with a full-bodied chocolate flavor. Not too sugary. Really nice stuff. So I looked up the company, Rausch.

Look for this logo!

As you might have guessed, that’s German. They’re a family-run company based in Berlin, founded in 1918. Each of their products uses cocoa from a single growing region somewhere in the world. Here is a run-down of the chocolate types and regions:

• Nouméa: Papua New Guinea
• Madanga: Madagascar
• Puerto Cabello: Venezuela (this is the milk chocolate I had)
• Guácimo: from Costa Rica
• Amacado: Peru
• El Cuador: Ecuador
• Tobago: Tobago
• Tembadoro: Trinidad

One thing I noticed in this list is that none of their cocoa comes from West Africa, which is where the bulk of the world’s cocoa currently comes from. I wonder why?

Here’s what their website has to say about their relationships with their cocoa growers:

We have the best cocoa farmers of the world as our partners – in Costa Rica, Ecuador, Madagascar, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Trinidad, Tobago and Venezuela. We encourage and help them so that they will be able on a long-term basis to plant the best cocoa trees and produce and deliver the best cocoa possible without having to worry about their social situation.

I don’t know how readily available this chocolate is around the country & world, but if you ever see Plantagen Schokolade chocolate in a shop, I highly recommend it. Though I’ve only the  Puerto Cabello so far, I’d bet they’re all pretty good.  I need to get back to that store and pick up some more, along with some of their other chocolate varieties.

I guess this was big news in the chocolate world about 1 year ago. Kraft bought out the legendary Cadbury’s, then more or less immediately started breaking promises and closing chocolate making plants in England. At first I thought this was very sad for the workers who lost their jobs, but not such a big deal for the world of chocolate lovers. I never really liked Cadbury chocolate much, and their recent brilliant ploy of replacing cocoa butter in their chocolate with palm oil didn’t win them a lot of sympathy either. As for Kraft, do they even make chocolate? I guess they do now.

But there is at least one great thing that we owe to Cadbury’s – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory! Apparently, when Roald Dahl was attending some scary little private boys school in Derbyshire, the nearby Cadbury  factory would occasionally send over new products for the children to sample. According to the legend (and his own biographical writings), young Roald would dream of inventing a new confection so amazing that it would knock the socks off the factory owner, Mr. Cadbury. So, these chocolate daydreams were the birthplace of Willy Wonka’s factory, and some of his wacky  products.

Uncle Ken, Where Does Chocolate Come From? Well, children, it’s like this:

In the beginning, the Lord created chocolate, and he saw that it was good. Then he separated the light from the dark, and it was better.

Not buying it, eh? Kids these days – they always want the complicated explanation. Well, I found the truth on YouTube. It’s a promotional video for an organic chocolate company, but it’s not too advertisey and it’s the best short video I could find explaining cacao processing. (I waste my morning surfing YouTube, so that you can waste yours surfing this blog.)

Here’s the play-by-play in case you want just the facts.

1. Grow cacao plants
2. Harvest the ripe pods
3. Get the seeds out of the pods
4. Dump the seeds into a big wooden box and let them sit there for a while, fermenting
5. Dry the fermented seeds in the sun or some kind of mechanical dryer
6. Get the hard skins off of the seeds, keeping the “nibs”
7. Grind the nibs
8. Squeeze/press the cocoa oil out of the nibs
9. The oil cools and becomes cocoa butter
10. The remaining de-oiled nibs are now squashed into a hard cake
11. Grind the caked cocoa-bean substance into a powder
12. That’s cocoa powder!

And that’s about it. Any more questions? Ask your Mother.

It’s surely a sad commentary on the state of our society when you need an excuse to do something as essential as eating chocolate. But if excuses are necessary, then it’s nice to know that Science is there to provide them. There are actually far more than I’ll write in this post, but I’m a bit short on time so here are three good reasons to reach for the choco, in no particular order.

Reason # 1: Chocolate is good for your teeth.

You may have noticed that I’ve switched to calling them “reasons” now, rather than “excuses”. Sounds more scientific.

So, forging ahead all scientific-like, chocolate is good for your teeth. No, really, I read it on the Internet. Counter-intuitive as it may seem, chocolate (cocoa, actually) contains a substance that helps prevent tooth decay. The magical element in question is called theobromine. According to research, theobromine helps to kill off a type of cavity-causing bacteria called streptococcus mutans. Ergo, eating chocolate prevents tooth decay. Of course, the sugar in chocolate has more or less the opposite effect, but nothing a quick brushing can’t take care of, right? Right?  So repeat after me: “Chocolate today keeps the drill away”. Lame, yes, but I promised rationalizations, not poetry…

Reason # 2: Chocolate Lowers Your Cholestrol And Blood Pressure
Studies say that (what DON’T studies say? But as long as they’re telling us something we want to hear, let’s not be doubters, eh?), consumption of dark chocolate has been proven to help lower elevated blood pressure. Actually, my own blood pressure is low anyway, so this isn’t much good for me, but I’m sure some readers can use this one.

Also on the cardio-vascular front, eating dark chocolate regularly, has been shown in more than one scientific study to reduce LDL cholesterol (the bad kind) by as much as 10%. Cool.

I couldn’t find out anything about exactly how much chocolate is required to get these benefits, so better to eat as much as possible, just to be on the safe side.

Reason # 3: Chocolate will make you happy
Well, duh. Surely, eveyone here knew that already. But it’s nice to have some scientific evidence to validate our subjective experience, and here it is. Serotonin is a natural anti-depressant and you get a nice dose of that when you eat chocolate. In addition, eating some chocolate right now will quickly increase your body’s production of endorphins, thereby producing feelings of pleasure and euphoria.

If it feels good, eat it!

Not only does chocolate work fast, it lasts longer. “Longer than what?”, you ask. Well, a recent study, featured on the BBC news, compared the pleasure produced by eating chocolate to that produced by passionately kissing one’s significant other (no word on how it compares to kissing that hot stranger you were fantasizing about on the way home from work the other day). In this study, chocolate came out on top (ahemm), in that the pleasure lasted significantly longer with the chocolate than with the kiss. I think I’ll have to write more about this particular bit of scientific research later.

The point? If it feels good, eat it! Words to live by…

Stay tuned for more chocolate-flavored rationalizations in a later post.

It’s now been a few weeks since I started writing on this site. So far it hasn’t been hard at all to keep up with my twice a week writing plan. My approach has been to research chocolate-related things I want to know about myself, and then summarize and share the interesting bits in a post. I’ve already learned a lot about chocolate that I didn’t know before. I hope it’s as interesting to you, my readers, as it is to me. I’m still no expert, but if I keep writing and you keep reading, I’m sure we’ll all end up as illuminati of the magical cocoa bean.

There’s plenty more on my TODO list of topics, but if anyone has suggestions or requests for a particular kind of chocolate-related content, please don’t hesitate to let me know via the comment form.

In an earlier post I mentioned the amounts of cocoa solids and cocoa butter contained in different types of chocolate (dark, milk, white).  In that post, I was going on about this stuff as if I had any idea what the hell I was talking about. I didn’t then, but now I do, because I looked it all up in order to write this post. So that you too can be an expert and look down on the lesser person who doesn’t know his cocoa solids from his BUTTer, I will share this new knowledge with you now:

Cocoa Solids

Basically, this is plain cocoa. No sugar. No fat. Tastes very bitter on its own. Most of the chocolate flavor, as well as the stuff in chocolate that’s good for you – i.e. antioxidants – is in the cocoa solids. So if you’re interested in chocolate as a health food, best get the kind with high cocoa (cocoa solids) density.  Just because this is too simple, there’s a variant of this called “Dutch Process Chocolate” which was developed by the van Houten family – they who make that delicious cocoa you buy in a tin. Their process makes the cocoa milder, less bitter, and easier to dissolve (good for making hot chocolate).

Cocoa Butter

Cocoa Butter

Cocoa butter is the fat extracted directly from the coca bean or from chocolate liquor (more about that in a sec).  Add some milk, sugar, and a bit of vanilla and you’ve got white chocolate.  It’s what gives dark and milk chocolates their richness. It also has the magical property of melting at around 35 degrees C, which means it doesn’t melt at room temperature, but does melt in your mouth. Another convenient truth about cocoa butter is that it takes a ling time rancid. This not only helps give chocolate its long shelf life; it also means that cocoa butter is used in cosmetics and pharmaceuticals like creams and soaps (and some other less appetizing medicine delivery vehicles.)

Chocolate Liquor

Not an alcoholic beverage in this, sorry. Chocolate liquor is what you (well not you - chocolate makers) get when you process  raw cocoa beans. By process we mean ferment, roast, shell, grind, then melt. Baking chocolate is made directly from the chocolate liquor. For eating chocolate, the stuff gets mixed with other ingredients or else separated into cocoa solids and cocoa butter, then re-combined in varied proportions.

So now we know. Feel smarter? I do.