Who would ever forget chocolates? especially during our childhood years? But until now, though we are getting older and older, chocolates are part of our yesteryear's, and until now, many still love eating or drinking chocolates.
In the United States, a 12,290 pound chocolate bar created by the Worlds Finest Chocolate Company set a new Guinness World Record on September 13, 2011 in Chicago, Illinois. The bar, which stands nearly 3 feet high and measures 21 feet long, beat the previous record chocolate bar by more than a ton. All guests and spectators couldn't wait to see the said huge chocolate bar.
A LITTLE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Chocolate, can be a raw or processed food, produced from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree, cultivated for at least three millennia in Mexico, Central and South America, with its earliest documented use around 1100 BC.
Researchers say that Mesoamerican people made chocolate beverages, including the Aztecs, who made it into a beverage known as xocolātl, a Nahuatl word meaning "bitter water". Cacao seed have an intense bitter taste, and must be fermented to develop such flavor.
Beans are dried, cleaned, and roasted, its shell is removed to produce cacao nibs. The nibs are then ground to cocoa mass, pure chocolate in rough form. Because this cocoa mass usually is liquefied then molded with or without other ingredients, it is called chocolate liquor. The liquor also may be processed into two components: cocoa solids and cocoa butter.
Unsweetened baking bitter chocolates contains primarily cocoa solids and cocoa butter in varying proportions. Today, much of the consumed chocolates is in the form of sweet chocolate, combining cocoa solids, cocoa butter or other fat, and sugar. Milk chocolate on the other hand is sweet chocolate that additionally contains milk powder or condensed milk. White chocolate contains cocoa butter, sugar, and milk but no cocoa solids.
PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF CHOCOLATES
Cocoa solids containing alkaloids such as theobromine and phenethylamine, which have physiological effects on the body. It has been linked to serotonin levels in the brain. Some researchers have found that chocolate, eaten in moderation, can lower blood pressure.
CHOCOLATE GIFTS, BEVERAGE AND OTHERS
Hence, chocolates has become one of the most popular food types and flavors in the world. Chocolate gifts molded into different shapes have become traditional on certain holidays: chocolate bunnies and eggs are popular on Easter, chocolate coins on Hanukkah, Santa Claus and other holiday symbols on Christmas, and chocolate hearts or chocolate in heart-shaped boxes on Valentine's Day. Chocolate is also used in cold and hot beverages, to produce chocolate milk and hot chocolate. Around three quarters of the world's cacao bean production today takes place in West Africa.
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