Health and Wellness Product …. What the heck is Chocolate, Anyway?

Health and Wellness Product research is interesting!

Cacao trees only grow in tropical climates and it usually takes five years before they begin to bear fruit, or in the cacao tree trees case “pods”. These pods have an average of thirty “beans” and it requires nearly four hundred beans to make a pound of chocolate liquor. Now don’t get excited because this chocolate liquor is strictly non-alcoholic and is used for all chocolate and cocoa products.

Once you have the liquor it can be processed into cocoa powder by “pressing” out most of the cocoa butter….this is the natural fat of the cocoa bean. While it smells terrific it is very bitter tasting.

Various ratios of chocolate liquor to cocoa butter, sugar and vanilla create the different types of chocolate, that is, sweet, semi-sweet and bittersweet chocolate. Milk chocolate has fresh, whole milk added to the mix while white chocolate is a mix of the cocoa butter, sugar, milk and vanilla.

Manufacturers tweak the amounts of the ingredients and this varies the tastes and smoothness of the end product and of course this affects the price also.

There are many myths and misconceptions about chocolate, but it seems that many of these “old wives tales” are just that…..we will have to see what the XOCAI experts and the scientific research have to say about all of this.....

More next time from Health and Wellness Product!