Martha Teichner on CBS Sunday morning presented an interesting piece on the history and uses of chocolate.

Here are some notes from the show:

The Olmec Indians of Central America were the first known users of chocolate, 3,000 years ago. They drank it, as did the Mayans and the Aztecs, who poured it from one pot to another in order create a froth on top, the part they liked best.

Cocoa beans were also used for money.

Spanish conquistadores and missionaries took the drink back to Europe, where it became fashionable with the aristocracy, who added sugar to it.

The chocolate bar didn’t exist until a British company called J.S. Fry and Sons invented it in 1847.

Hershey bars didn’t come along until 1894.

Chocolate is a $13 billion a year business in the U.S.

It’s also been found that cocoa beans are loaded with flavarnols that are important to cardiovascular health! Now that’s good news. However, according to the piece by Ms. Teichner, normal chocolate making destroys most of them.

Mars (the candy company that makes M&Ms and Dove candy) has figured out how to make chocolate that retains three to four times the flavanols in most commercial chocolate, and is using flavanol-rich chocolate in several of its products now.

I’m anxious to give those a try! Nothing like eating chocolate to keep the doctor away, n’est pas?

Filed Under: Food Talk