Tim Scallon/Nutritionist
On one of our trips to Costa Rica, our friend and guide Eric suggested a chocolate tour. Without hesitation, my wife Kathy immediately accepted. In her mind, she saw counters crowded with all different kinds of chocolate and herself at the front of a long banquet line with a large plate ready to indulge in this all-you-can-eat feast of delectable delights. The tour was actually educational in nature. It reviewed the history of chocolate and demonstrated the complicated process of making chocolate from the cacao fruit.
The history of chocolate began in Mesoamerica where fermented beverages made from chocolate date as far back as 1900 BC. Cacao pods grow on trees and contain 30 to 40 brownish-red almond-shaped bean-like seeds. The Maya roasted these seeds, ground them into a paste and mixed the paste into a drink with water, chili peppers, and cornmeal. By 1400 AD, the Aztecs were importing cacao as tribute from their conquered territories in the south. When the Spanish conquered Montezuma, they were given a highly regarded chocolate beverage to drink. On our chocolate tour, when we sampled this “chocolate” beverage, you would not recognize it as the chocolate we know. The Spaniards added sugar to this bitter drink and over time, it became a popular beverage in Europe. During the 1800s, new processing methods further reduced the bitterness and different types of chocolate such as milk chocolate began to emerge. Chocolate was transforming from a drink to primarily a food. By the 1900s, production of cacao began to shift from the New World to Asia and Africa and improved harvesting methods resulted in chocolate becoming affordable to a larger international market. Today, approximately 7.3 million tons of chocolate are consumed worldwide each year.
Research continues to point to dark chocolate as having many health benefits, including a lower risk of heart disease and diabetes, preventing blood clots, improving memory, lowering cholesterol and even preventing some types of cancer. Remember all the milk chocolate candy bars we grew up with? These snack foods while tasty have minimal cacao content and are loaded with sugar. Needless to say, they are not considered elements of a healthy diet. Dark chocolate is defined by its cacao content, 50%–90% cacao. Cacao is rich in plant molecules called flavanols. These flavanols support the production of nitric oxide, which relaxes blood vessels and improves blood flow. They also increase insulin sensitivity, which may play a role in reducing the risk of diabetes. The National Foundation for Cancer Research found that flavanols may reduce the risk of skin cancer and improve overall skin health.
During this month when we celebrate True Love, nothing pleases quite like chocolate. When I was developing the recipe for this article, Chocolate Butter Pecan Pie, Kathy was very supportive (a sign of True Love). In order to evaluate every characteristic, she kept telling me to make another pie. Although I thought we got it right the second time, Kathy wasn’t sure and after the fourth trial, I realized that True Love and chocolate are sometimes inseparable. Just remember, dark chocolate is the healthy choice and there is no substitute for True Love.
Tim Scallon is a registered dietitian nutritionist with years of experience practicing nutrition therapy in local hospitals and clinics, teaching nutrition and developing healthy recipes. He is a Nacogdoches resident and he helped create the popular TV show Memorial Cooking Innovations celebrating the world of food and health.