Yes those candy bars sure taste good, but there’s a lot you probably didn’t know about chocolate! Do you want to find out? Well, here goes!
1. We’ve heard of rice and pasta, but chocolate as a staple? Yes, ask the South Mexico Olmec tribe back **in 1000 B.C. **They ate chocolate all the time! Strange, but true!
2. **Talk about sweet ceremonies! **The Maya drank liquid chocolate during weddings, engagements, baptisms and even funerals! Whoever thought there was something ceremonial about chocolate!
3. Some chocolates may cost you but did you know that Cacao or chocolates beans were used as currency by Aztec and Maya tribes? If we had that today we would be eating out of our wallets!
4. So who thought of solidifying chocolate? Thank Mexican nuns from the 1700’s as they created and exported the first chocolate product as a fund raiser for their convent.
5. Here’s another fact. Not just 10 or 50 but chocolate remarkably has over 500 flavors in it! No wonder it tastes so good. Vanilla and strawberry don’t even come close to this figure.
6. Heard of Mexican Emperor Montezuma? He drank liquid chocolate before getting busy in his harem. Since chocolate make you feel good, it is considered an aphrodisiac.
7. Those gory scenes in Alfred Hitchcock's ‘Psycho’, was all chocolate syrup! Although the scene finishes in about 45 seconds, it took 7 days to get that shot done perfectly! Now that’s a sticky plot!
8. Chocolate was re-born in 1879 when Daniel Peter and Henre Nestle introduced milk chocolate to the world. In the same year Rudolphe Lindt introduced the conching process which makes chocolate smooth and soft.
9. Napoleon was great in many ways. Did you know he took chocolate along with him during his military campaigns. Now that was a clever move as chocolate gives you added energy and restores carbohydrates.
10. For all those of you out there dreaming about those chocolate bars, dream away! You can’t blame chocolate for raising your blood cholesterol. Now that’s a fact so eat!
Chocolate has changed the way we eat, romance and live. But don’t go overboard as too much of a good thing can be bad!