Chocolate, Reputation and history

Chocolate, Reputation and history

Day love is gone, but maybe you still have gifts given pair of chocolate? Chocolate may be the most popular foods on this Valentine's Day.

Chocolate has long been a high reputation. Foods or beverages made from brown seeds was the admiration of many people, not just because it delicious, but also it has a plus in improving mood and affect the appearance of a surge of love.

Brown tree, whose fruits contain seeds that can be processed into a snack of chocolate, was first discovered 2,000 years ago in American tropical forests. Meanwhile, the Mayans are the first people who eat chocolate (250-900 BC). They mix the brown seeds with various seasonings to make a drink that is believed effective.

For the Mayans, chocolate was a symbol of life and fertility. Therefore, brown fruit often was present in the religious rituals, including weddings and believed to be the food of the gods.

In the region of Central Mexico, the Aztecs believed, people who ate beans from cocoa trees will have wisdom and strength. They also believe chocolate contains good nutrition for health and have the benefits of an aphrodisiac. Aztec king Montezuma drank even have a brown habit every day to increase libido.

Chocolate was brought to Europe began in 1519 after Montezuma offers a spicy drink to the travelers Spain, Cortez, and the army. Cortez then brought cocoa to Spain and promotes it. However, for century’s chocolate is beverage known as the nobles.

Chocolate's reputation as an aphrodisiac food is very popular among the French nobility. Art and literature more nuanced erotic content inspired by chocolate. Casanova, the Italian traveler who is better known as the conqueror of women, told always eat chocolate before sex. The linkage of chocolate with passion plant persisted until today.

Then, since when chocolate is identical to the celebration of love on Valentine's Day? The literature mentions, since the 17th century, the couple had begun to give gifts on Valentine's Day and something sweet often made choices. Only in 1868, Richard Cadbury introduced a box of chocolates as a Valentine gift.

Efficacy of an aphrodisiac

Although the traveler’s love of history is always told to consume chocolate, contain chemicals found Phenyl ethylamine (PEA) or "love drug" in a little brown. PEA is believed to affect mood, attention, and energy. When someone feels very happy or euphoria, the body will issue a PEA.

However, some researchers say, the flavonoid in chocolate can bend blood vessels so that blood flows smoothly, including those leading to the sexual organs. That's why many people who believe chocolate expedite matters in bed.

Black Chocolate

Black is often considered lower than the white. However, do not try to use the same formula for dark chocolate. Because the efficacy of dark chocolate more than white chocolate.

Benefits of dark chocolate are already visible from the womb. As a food, either packaged in the form of a snack-bar and he made directly from the cocoa powder processed with added sugar, milk, and flavouring (flavorings and fragrance).

Cocoa powder plant their own seeds are believed to contain the active ingredient. One of them, gang members flavonoids, epikatekin, which includes powerful antioxidants. Research has proven that, 1.5 ounces of dark chocolate has about 800 milligrams of antioxidants, almost the same amount (or maybe more) with the antioxidants found in a cup of black tea or red wine.

The researchers believe flavonoid compounds that can neutralize harmful effects of free radicals intent on destroying the cells of body tissues. They believed could suppress the oxidation of low density lipoprotein (LDL, aka bad cholesterol) so as to prevent blockage of the artery vessel wall.

In addition to preventing heart disease, dark chocolate is also believed to protect the body from a stroke. A study at the University of California revealed that dark chocolate prevents blood clotting. As is known, freezing blood is one of the conditions that make someone a stroke.

However, controversy still colors the various real benefits of dark chocolate. On the one hand, there's no denying Khasiatnya, especially after it supported a variety of benefits of research and scientific evidence. However, on the other hand, there are many "dark side" of dark chocolate that has not been solved.

That is why, the doctor may recommend patients to eat more dark chocolate, at least for now, still very small. "If traced deeper, dark chocolate still contains too much fat and sugar, to be recommended in a doctor's prescription," said John Erdman, a nutritionist from the University of Illinois, USA.