The chocolate weekly 45 – 2014

News

Welcome to the new week. Let’s make it perfect also with some great chocolate. Because …

“Chocolate symbolizes, as does no other food, luxury, comfort, sensuality, gratification, and love.”
― Karl Petzke

Did you know?

  • Cacao trees can live to be 200 years old, but they produce marketable cocoa beans for only 25 years.
  • Nearly all cacao trees grow within 20 degrees of the equator, and 75% grow within 8 degrees of either side of it. Cacao trees grow in three main regions: West Africa, South and Central America, and Southeast Asia/Oceania.
  • Each cacao tree can produce approximately 2,500 beans. It takes a cacao tree four to five years to produce its first beans.
  • It takes approximately 400 cacao beans to make one pound of chocolate.
  • Dark chocolate has been shown to be beneficial to human health, but milk chocolate, white chocolate, and other varieties are not. For dark chocolate to be beneficial, cacao should be the first ingredient listed, not sugar.
  • Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa once wrote, “There is no metaphysics on earth like chocolate.”
  • The new dessert at Conrad London. Cherry mousse with chocolate & marzipan ice cream by the pastry chef Zoe Wager.
  • Research suggests that dark chocolate boosts memory, attention span, reaction time, and problem-solving skills by increasing blood flow to the brain. Studies have also found that dark chocolate can improve the ability to see in low-contrast situations (such as poor weather) and promote lower blood pressure, which has positive effects on cholesterol levels, platelet function, and insulin sensitivity.
  • There is a correlation between the amount of chocolate a country consumes on average and the number of Nobel Laureates that country has produced.
  • A jewel thief made off with $28 million dollars of gems in 2007 because he was able to gain the trust of the guards working the bank in Antwerp, Belgium, by repeatedly offering them chocolate.
  • Chocolate has over 600 flavor compounds, while red wine has just 200.
  • Chocolate gives you a more intense mental high and gets your heart pounding more than kissing does.
  • The inventor of the chocolate chip cookie, Ruth Wakefield, sold her cookie recipe to Nestle in exchange for a lifetime supply of chocolate.
  • A 2013 study found that the scent of chocolate in a bookstore made customers 40% more likely to buy cookbooks or romance novels, and 22% more likely to buy books of any genre.
  • A 2004 study in London found that 70% of people would reveal their passwords in exchange for a chocolate bar.

Have a lovely week, but please be careful with your passwords!  ;)