Chocolate Fun Facts

I had so much fun writing the Health By Chocolate blog that I didn't save enough room for fun facts about chocolate. This post will be dedicated only to fun but interesting and fairly useless facts about chocolate.

Fun Facts

• Monkeys were the first to find the cacao plant edible and delectable, not man. The monkeys would eat the pulp and spit out the beans. Ancient people followed the monkeys' example, and only ate the delicious pulp. This was probably what Mother Nature had in mind: the seeds were disseminated throughout Mesoamerica, making cacao trees plentiful in South and Central America and guaranteeing cacao's evolution.
• The Aztecs thought it gave their warriors strength.
• Early doctors used to prescribe it to cure ailments.
• Aztecs called it "xocoatl" for bitter water.
• Mayan burial tombs have been found that contain offerings, including ancient potteries that bear witness to cacao's importance. The vases are covered with paintings showing Mayan gods fighting over beans and kings waiting to be served cacao creations.
• Africa generates 70% of cocoa beans in the world.
• Latin America and the Caribbean also produce a fair amount of chocolate.
• Like wine, chocolate reflects the distinct flavors of the region where it is grown. Click here to see how the flavors vary by country.
• The cocoa bean goes through an amazing 8 step process in order to become chocolate.

Cocoa vs Cocao
Cacao (pronounced Ka-Kow) refers to the tree and the beans inside the pods
Cocoa (pronounced K0-Ko) refers to the two byproducts of the cocoa bean, the cocoa butter and the cocoa powder