Fun Facts about Chocolate:- Love Chocolates? Then you just have to know these 10 strange facts about Chocolate, before taking your next dose of chocolate.
If you binge eat on chocolate, then you should probably read this post. We’re bringing you some of the myths, facts, and realities of the wonder that is chocolate.
10 Interesting Fun Facts about Chocolate
1. Death By Chocolate
Nope, death by chocolate isn’t all that exotic as it’s hyped up to be. And neither is it some phrase that puts you on par with Gen Z. Want to know how this phrase came into being? The 17th century saw death by chocolate, literally in Mexico.
A man lost his life to chocolate, okay, maybe not chocolate per se, but the poison injected into the chocolate. Who was the victim? A Spanish Bishop. This event saw the banning of the consumption of chocolate during church services. Bizarre?
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2. The Chocolate River
This isn’t something that Willy Wonka concocted. A chocolate river actually did exist all the way back in 1971. The famous chocolate river that went by the name Augustus Gloop was made of 15,000 gallons of water mixed in with chocolate and cream.
The downside to this otherwise natural-sounding haven? All the cream used in the river ended up spoiling the river, emanating a rather foul smell.
3. Your Happy Pill
It isn’t a myth that chocolate makes you happy. There happen to be a lot of naturally occurring chemicals in chocolate that boost our moods. There are chemicals associated with tryptophan, which makes you really happy, and also one that induces feelings associated with love.
Tryptophan increases the production of serotonin which influences the endorphins in the human brain. Since there’s a considerable amount of this stuff in chocolate, it’s no wonder people develop such a liking for it.
4. Chocolate as Currency?
Cocoa beans were used as currency back in the Mayan times. It was estimated to be worth more than gold dust. The cultivation of cocoa beans was restricted so that the value of the beans wouldn’t go down. So does this mean that the rich who wallowed in wealth ate their money?
Ancient folk was of the belief that chocolate was the food of the gods. Cocoa beans were exchanged as opposed to gold or money.
5. Ward Off Tooth Decay
You are likely to be of thinking that chocolate is full of sugar or artificial sweeteners that are bound to cause your pearly whites to turn dull. But, in reality, pure cocoa can actually help ward tooth decay.
Some of the naturally occurring chemicals in cocoa beans help fight off bacteria in the mouth. This is so effective that it can be added to toothpaste and mouthwashes too. Pleasant reminder to all those dreamers out there reading this, we said Pure Cocoa. That means chocolate that is devoid of sweeteners.
6. White Chocolate is a Hoax
White chocolate isn’t actually chocolate. Yup, they’ve been lying to us all this while. In order for chocolate to be, well, chocolate a product must contain cocoa solids or cocoa liquor.
What does white chocolate have? Cocoa butter, which isn’t either of the two aforementioned ingredients, ergo, it isn’t chocolate.
7. Where Does All the Chocolate Go?
Well, there has to be one country which is hogging up all our chocolate, isn’t it? And the finger points directly to the not Americans they are Swiss persons. One average Swiss person eats just about 20 lbs of chocolate, each year.
If you thought they eat a lot of chocolate, then you are right without a doubt. Americans are also known to consume a big part of the world’s chocolate. This weighs in at more than three billion pounds! Who’s following them up? The Europeans with 40% consumption.
8. German Chocolate Cake Isn’t from Germany
If you’ve got some German in your roots, and you think you honor your ancestors by digging into German Chocolate Cake, then you’re probably wrong. This tasty treat is preceded by German, but there isn’t anything German about it.
In the middle of the 19th century, a man by the name of Sam German came up with a recipe. This gave rise to dark chocolate baking bars, used especially for cake. Sam worked with the Baker Chocolate Company with such dedication that they named the cake after him. Was he German? Err.. No.
9. Chocolate Chip Cookies Were an Accident!
In 1930, Ruth Wakefield realized that she was out of Baker’s chocolate, so she took to mix in Nestle chocolate into her cookie dough. She expected the chocolate to be absorbed into her cookie mix but was in for a rude surprise when she gave birth to chocolate cookies.
She sold the idea to Nestle, who granted her a lifetime supply of chocolate. Such beautiful times!
10. We Eat a Lot of Toblerones
It’s not just you, but the entire population. There are enough Toblerone bars sold that if they were to be laid end to end, they would cover 62,000 kilometers. That’s longer than the circumference of the Earth!
So, now you know some interesting and strange facts about chocolates and maybe you enjoy double after knowing these facts.
Hope you enjoyed them; please share these Chocolate facts within your circle. Please also share your thoughts as comments.