fun chocolate facts
Mood-enhancing Dark Chocolate
May 24, 2013
A recently published study in Australia claimed that dark chocolate enhances one’s mood by means of boosting calmness and feelings of contentment. How is this possible? It’s all in the polyphenols that cocoa is known to be rich in.
Polyphenols are naturally found in plants and are a basic element of the human diet. Such compounds are proven to lessen oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is linked to a lot of diseases. Also, polyphenols are said to have outstanding psychological effects.
“Anecdotally, chocolate is often linked to mood enhancement,” Matthew Pase, a PhD candidate at the University of Swineburne in Melbourne and lead author of the study, claims. “This clinical trial is perhaps the first to scientifically demonstrate the positive effects of cocoa polyphenols on mood.”
Chocolate Makes People Smarter
May 3, 2013
Chemical addictions, as we all know, have a tendency to be destructive. It really is quite scary. Fortunately most people have less damaging "addictions" in life. It’s no secret that a bulk of the world’s population enjoys a bit of chocolate, at least every now and then.
Statistics have shown that the average American consumes around 11 pounds of chocolate annually (depending on whose numbers you look at).
Chocolate may not be a life essential. It’s not as though it would be the death of somebody if chocolate just disappeared from the face of the earth. However, if you took it away, one of the biggest and yummiest pleasures you can get on the planet Earth would also be extinct. And maybe a powerful brain food would be done too!
Quite interesting, a study last year in the New England Journal of Medicine displayed how chocolate not only tastes good, but it also has the power to make a person kind of smarter. Something like that.
According to an article with the title "Chocolate Consumption, Cognitive function, and Nobel Laureates," the majority of Nobel Prize winners come from countries that prove to have high consumption of chocolate.
For instance, Switzerland has about three times the number of Nobel Prize winners per capita, while the people in their lands eat twice as much chocolate on an annual basis.
According to the graph below (which I found in an article at Scientific American) showing a plot of chocolate consumption in kilograms versus the number of Nobel Prizes per country, there is a strong correlation of 0.79. (Sweden appears to be the biggest anomaly. If you take it out, the correlation jumps to 0.86.)
Pretty cool! Perhaps this shows that when an entire country is "addicted" to chocolate, big things can happen.
How To Fully Enjoy Your Chocolate
April 5, 2013
"Mindful eating goes beyond eating," said Lilian Cheung, a registered dietitian, co-author of Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Life, and director of health promotion and communication at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts.
You can easily be more mindful if you opt for high-quality chocolate and check the label before buying. You can get an instant idea regarding the sweetness or bitterness of chocolate by understanding the chocolate to sugar ratio.
"If you buy chocolate with a higher cocoa content, it will be less sweet," said Stephen Durfee, a pastry chef instructor at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone, in St. Helena, California. "You will get more of the natural flavor of chocolate."
Chocolate Facts You Want To Know
February 15, 2013
Always be choosy with the chocolate you eat. Chocolate is known to be packed with nutrients, but to be able to get its substantial benefits, we must know what we're eating.
Chocolates that have at least 70% cocoa are the best ones, considering the higher the cocoa content, the more nutritious. Your chocolate is also better off non- or lightly alkalized or non-dutched. While milk and white chocolate are head-tilting good, they don’t offer as much healthy flavanols as dark chocolate does.
If you’re not a fan of dark chocolate, fret not. It's actually an acquired taste, and you can develop it by slowly increasing percentage of cocoa in the chocolates you eat. As a matter of fact, there are milk chocolates with 50 percent cocoa or more available in the market now.
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Feast of St. Nicholas Equals Chocolate For Children
December 5, 2012
The Feast of St. Nicholas is on ode to the known patron saint of children. He is also known as Sinterklaas in The Netherlands and other neighboring countries while he is popular as Santa Claus in the United States and other parts of the world. The day of the feast may vary but it is celebrated on the eve of December 5 or the morning thereafter of December 6. Among the many countries that recognize St. Nicholas are Belgium, Germany, France, Switzerland, Hungary, Poland, Luxembourg and, of course, The Netherlands.
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201 Fun Chocolate Facts
October 13, 2012
Well this is exciting. The staff here at Chocolate University Online has recently released an ebook exclusively for the Amazon Kindle. It's called 201 Fun Chocolate Facts.
If you previously downloaded our ebook 101 Things You Must Know About Chocolate you've seen some of the material that went into this new book.
We greatly expanded and enhanced the content while adding a chocolate trivia quiz at the end so that you have questions you can use to stump your friends.
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Added Awesomeness To The Already Awesome Chocolate
October 11, 2012
Did my title just scare you? Please, say it didn't. I may come off as a chocoholic who worships chocolate and its overall greatness. Well, yeah, that is actually true. But heck. I am sane enough to be writing this for you. So, welcome, and go on with your reading, and you will perfectly understand why I am just this appreciative when it comes to chocolate.
Lots of things have already been said about chocolate when it comes to its beneficial effects to the human mind and body. Little did we know that further studies and research are being conducted in order to lengthen the existing long list of the good things about it.
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The “Hot” in Hot Chocolate?
October 4, 2012
I am not your typical morning person who opens her eyes the moment the sun shows up. In fact, I am the type who curls myself up in bed and extends a few more minutes. But once I hear my tummy rumbling, begging for food, I summon all my might to pull myself up to grab my energizer buddy, the hot chocolate.
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The Origins Of Ice Cream
September 27, 2012
Ice cream is often called "The Greatest American Dessert." Although the product is usually American, the United States cannot claim its origin and source.
Ice cream is a frozen dairy dessert made from cream or milk, often combined and manufactured with other flavors and fruits. Most of the time it contains sugar, though sometimes other sweeteners are used.
The chosen ingredients are stirred slowly while the product is being cooled. This allows the air to be integrated and prevents the forming of ice crystals. The result is then a smooth, semi-solid foam that is highly malleable and can easily be scooped. I'm drooling just thinking about it.
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Origins of the Ice Cream Sundae
September 20, 2012
The ice cream sundae is typically comprised of a scoop of any ice cream and topped with a sauce or syrup. In some cases other toppings are also included.
Many stories of origins are considered to be its original source, and 3 of them are considered to be the most reliable stories. Here they are...
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