The seed everyone loves

Whether you consume it or put it on your face the cacao bean seed, which to most people is known as chocolate , makes everyone’s life a little more pleasant.

Chocolate comes from the tropical cacao tree’s cantaloupe-sized bean pods. Actually it’s the slimy seeds inside the pod that manufacturers use to make the chocolate candy, chocolate drinks, and the cosmetics we all use.

This love of chocolate all started 3,200 years ago during the time of the Olmec peoples of Middle America . Later the Mayans drank the bitter seed extract with every meal, and traded it with the Aztecs.

The Europeans were introduced to chocolate by Christopher Columbus who gathered cacao seeds and took them back to Spain in 1502. The Spaniards discovered that adding sugar, vanilla and cinnamon to the seeds took away the bitter taste.

Then the Dutch and Italian sailors came across cacao seeds and took them back to their respective countries. Chocolate soon became so popular with Europeans that they started plantations throughout the tropics.

A Dutch chocolate maker, Conrad van Houten, invented a process of removing the fat from the roasted cacao seed in 1828 which produced a fine cocoa. This allowed for the making of chocolate drinks and for combining chocolate with sugar and remixing it with cocoa butter to create a solid form. It wasn’t until 1849 that Joseph Storrs Fry produced the first sweet, edible solid chocolate. That was followed in 1867 with the invention of chocolate milk by Henri Nestle. Soon after a process known as conching, developed by Rudolphe Lindt, made chocolate more blendable and enhanced the quality of the candy. Then chocolate became more affordable and the all the world craved it.

Chocolate not only tastes great, it’s also good for your health. It’s high in antioxidants, and phenolic compounds which help combat coronary disease. Phenolics prevents fat-like substances in the bloodstream from oxidizing and clogging the arteries. Some phenolic compounds known as flavonoids combat heart disease, and the serotonin, endorphins and phenyl ethylamine in chocolate not only alter our moods, but can lead to romance.

Today West Africa produces 40 percent of the world’s cocoa, while Mars and Hershey’s companies control two-thirds of the $16-billion a year North American chocolate market.

Candymachines.com offers a fine selection of chocolates for use in vending machines as well as chocolate favorites for personal candy snacking pleasure.