The Great Chocolate Debate

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The Great Chocolate Debate The sweet taste of chocolate has always intrigued me. As a young child I remember that we were only allowed to have chocolate on special occasions. Those occasions represented something special, like Easter, our birthday, or Valentine’s Day. Chocolate was synonymous with love and greatness….in a 1980 commercial Hersey’s referred to the candy bar as “ the great American chocolate bar” and just like in the commercial I always thought that having this treat was special (htttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2qex2cLj_M&feature=endscreen&NR=1). There has been a great debate over the years as to whether chocolate is detrimental or beneficial to one’s health. As defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary: chocolate is a food that is prepared from ground roasted cacao beans. It is consumed as candy, used to make beverages, and added as a flavoring or coating for confections and baked products. It was introduced to Europe by Hernán Cortés following his visit in 1519 to the court of Montezuma II, who served the conquistador a bitter cacao-bean drink, xocoatl. In making chocolate, the kernels of fermented and roasted cacao beans are ground into a paste called chocolate liquor, which may be hardened in molds to form baking (bitter) chocolate, pressed to reduce the cocoa butter (vegetable fat) content and then pulverized to make cocoa powder, or mixed with sugar and additional cocoa butter to make sweet (eating) chocolate. The addition of concentrated milk to sweet chocolate produces milk chocolate. White chocolate, made from cocoa butter, sugar, milk, and vanilla, contains no cocoa solids. Rich in carbohydrates and fat and containing small amounts of caffeine, chocolate is an excellent source of quick energy (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chocolate?show=0&t=1364429635). Research has documented that chocolate has several negative

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