Montclair High School Bio Blog: Chocolate: The Feel Good Food Agent or the Fake Friend?

Chocolate Bars with Cacao Beans and Cacao Powder

What is chocolate?

Chocolate is dark, rich, milky, creamy, gooey, flavorful and delicious. It is an immensely popular item, whose global business reaps an annual profit of around $74 billion. It is also many individuals' favorite sweet.

There are rumors and debates about chocolate. Many individuals question whether chocolate is just another sugar that adds to the daily calorie count or whether it has beneficial health effects. Chocolate is also a common substance upset individuals turn to for comfort.

Cacao Beans

Where does chocolate come from?

Chocolate comes from the tree, Theobroma cacao. The genus, Theobroma, is Greek for "food of the gods" and cacao is the root word retained by the Spanish from the Mayans, used to describe the tree and its products. The tree provides cacao beans whose seeds are extracted and fermented under banana leaves. After those 2-7 days, the seeds are dried and are shipped to a chocolate factory. The beans are roasted, cracked to leave the remains, nibs, and then the nibs are ground down into a thick paste. It can then be molded into cocoa powder or hard chocolate for consumption.

The chocolate will leave the factory and the products will enter stores all over the world since chocolate is very high in demand. Even in the past, cacao was so popular it was used as a valuable trading piece in the Aztec society. For example, one turkey hen was equal to about 100 cacao beans. Chocolate was like literal money on trees; it was popular, in demand and it brought pleasure to many.

Dark Chocolate in the Shape of a Heart

What does chocolate do to the body?

There has been documented evidence where chocolate was considered a treatment that, in the 16th and 17th centuries, was prescribed to Europeans in the humoral medical system of the day. A 2007 study by Cornell University states that although chocolate does contain small amounts of psychoactive substances that can act as mood elevators and stimulants, there is no scientific proof that is is an addictive or an aphrodisiac ( a substance that stimulates sex drive).

Due to chemicals such as anandamide, potentially psychoactive chemicals that stimulate the brain, being in chocolate, after one eats chocolate, they grow to crave it. Only pure cacao would satisfy the craving which is why they say dark chocolate is good for you and that it curbs hunger. This is due to the fact that since there are low concentrations of the chemicals, they act like a drug, forcing individuals to crave chocolate and sweets in absence of the chocolate and sweets.

To all my fellow chocolate lovers out there, feel free to indulge yourselves in some dark chocolate! What is your favorite? How about some Ghiradelli? Godiva? Dove? Nestle?

Dark Chocolate Bar with Crumbled Pieces

Does chocolate really affect the emotions?

Chocolate does not drastically affect the body but it can be a powerful mood enhancer. A study at the Winona State University stated that eating chocolate induces both negative and positive emotional changes in individuals. These changes include reduced tiredness (caffeine-like substance), elevated mood, elicited joy and increased activation. Mood elevation is common after consuming food but in comparison to an apple, the mood elevation was apparently higher after chocolate consumption.

According to the Winona State University experiment, the higher the calorie count, the more intense negative mood changes were. That is why eating real cacao dark chocolate is suggested instead of, for example, hot chocolate.

A 2009 declaration by the ACS stated that a new clinical trial supports the idea that moderate dark chocolate consumption reduces stress hormone levels in bodies of individuals who feel increased levels of stress. It was also declared that more and more scientific evidence is being discovered that dark chocolate contains certain antioxidants and other beneficial substances that may reduce the risk factors for various dangerous physical conditions including heart disease.