Do you like chocolate? Are you going to eat something this Valentine’s Day? Below, you can test your knowledge of chocolate. Please take a look at each statement and decide whether it’s true or not.
The first chocolate was made into drinks
FACT. When the Maya lived in Central America more than 3,000 years ago, they began to eat chocolate. Some people mix it with spices and wine to make a bitter, alcohol-based drink that they drank.
Chocolate comes from trees
FACT. In hot, tropical places, chocolate comes from a tree that grows in that kind of weather. Cocoa pods (fruit) are the first thing you see, and they’re bigger than your hand. Each pod has about 30-50 seeds inside it (also called beans). Cacao trees can only grow in a tiny world area, about 20 degrees above and below the equator.
Chocolate is made with fresh cocoa beans
FICTION. The cocoa sources are carried out of the pods, fermented, and dried, then put back into the pods. When the dried seeds are done, they are roasted to make the chocolate taste come out. Remove the outer shell from the cocoa nib, leaving just the cocoa nib behind. The bills are ground, so the fat comes out, making a cocoa liquor liquid. The liquor is then pressed to get out the cocoa butter, a pale-yellow oil. The cocoa solids remain. They use cocoa solids, cocoa butter, and sugar to make their unique chocolate.
White chocolate is one of the types of chocolate
FICTION. Technically, chocolate has to have cocoa solids to be called chocolate. White chocolate contains no cocoa solids in it. White chocolate is made of cocoa butter, milk, and sugar. White chocolate is the refined, white bread of the chocolate world, so think of it like that.
Chocolate is good for you
Because this is both FACT and FICTION, you might be happy to know that this is both. Flavanols are a natural substance found in cocoa beans that can help your body stay healthy. Flavanols are what give cocoa its sour taste.
Flavanols are antioxidants that may help keep your body from getting hurt inside. They may also help you stay healthy. Some studies have shown that they can help blood flow and keep your heart healthy. Flavanol content in chocolate decreases as it is made.
In theory, dark chocolate should have more flavanols (health benefits) than milk chocolate, and white chocolate should have none. Soluble fiber, vitamins, and minerals can also be found in dark chocolate, which is good for your health (iron, zinc, magnesium, copper, manganese, potassium, and phosphorus).
10 Reasons Why Giving In To Your Chocolate Cravings Can Be Beneficial to Your Health
While chocolate can be good for you, the study doesn’t show that eating more chocolate makes people lose weight. Recognize that not all chocolate is exact: Dark chocolate is better for you in general, but even the bittersweet types can be increased in fat, calories, and sugar, even if they’re made with cocoa beans.
However, if you treat yourself to a small amount of chocolate now and then, that’s a health message we can agree with. Afterward, tell us why chocolate is good for you in the comments below.
It lessens the chance of having a stroke
A 2011 Swedish analysis located that women who ate better than 45 grams of chocolate a week were 20% less likely to have a stroke than women who ate less than 9 grams.
Is Good for the Heart:
Regular chocolate eaters get a lot of good things for their heart, like lower blood pressure, less lousy LDL cholesterol, and a lower risk of heart disease. One of the reasons dark chocolate is good for your heart is that it helps fight inflammation, lowering your chances of having a heart attack or stroke.
It Fills You Up :
The Huffington Post talked to Dr. David Katz, the founding director of Yale University’s Prevention Research Center and a Huffington Post blogger. Because dark chocolate is wealthy in fiber, it can help keep you full, so you eat less.
He said that chocolate lovers might be better off if they had just one bite instead of eating 11 other things. According to an analysis from the University of Copenhagen, dark chocolate is more valuable than milk if you want to lose weight. It may also help you not crave sweet, salty, and fatty foods.
There is a chance that it could help fight diabetes
A little Italian analysis from 2005 found that people who eat a lot of chocolate are less likely to get diabetes.
You can use it to keep your skin safe
It’s not true that chocolate causes breakouts. Dark chocolate is good for your skin. Flavonoids are a kind of antioxidant located in dark chocolate that can help protect your skin from sun damage. And no, that doesn’t mean you can skip the sunscreen. It would help if you still had it.
It can stop coughs
I can’t stop coughing, can you help me? Theobromine, which is found in chocolate, may slow down the vagus nerve activity, which is the brain’s amount that makes it hard to cough. In belatedly 2010, the BBC said that scientists were looking into making a drug with theobromine instead of cough syrups that have codeine in them, which can have dangerous side effects.
It Makes You Feel Better
Indulging your sweet tooth now and then is a good thing because it makes you feel good. Dr. Patricia Fitzgerald, the wellness editor for HuffPost Healthy Living, says that having fun with food is part of having fun with life. People who eat chocolate also say that they are less stressed.
Because it helps with blood flow
Dr. Fitzgerald says that cocoa has anti-clotting and blood-thinning properties that work the same way as aspirin, enhancing blood flow and circulation.
It improves your vision
Because chocolate can improve blood flow, especially to the brain, researchers at the University of Reading in 2011 thought chocolate could also improve blood flow to the retina, which could help people see better.
Is It Smarter?
This growth in blood flow to the brain induced by flavanols in cocoa seems to make people feel more awake. In a small British study, they also did better on counting tasks.
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