'Is chocolate a food or a drug' - Essay Example

Chocolate has been a popular and revered flavor for many past civilizations, chocolate residue have been found in pottery dating to 1100 BC from Honduras, and 600-400 BC from Belize. Till date chocolate is one of the most popular flavors in the world and chocolate lovers known as "chocoholics" are ready to swear by its pleasurable and medicinal effects. The Mayan civilization worshipped the Cacao Tree for they believed it was divine in origin. The Mayans called the fruit of the cacao tree "food of the gods” and also associated it with the god of fertility.

The Aztecs also considered the cocoa tree a gift from the god of wisdom and knowledge. They considered chocolate to be an aphrodisiac as it invigorated men and made women less inhibited, the Aztec emperor Monteczuma is said to have drank fifty golden goblets of chocolate a day in order to enhance his sexual ability (Thames & Hudson, 2000) Chocolate was an important luxury good throughout pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, and cacao beans were often used as currency. Today chocolate takes the form of a substance of powder or a block composing of raw and processed food from roasted and crushed cacao seeds found from the tropical cacao tree.

Chocolate has a unique appeal of sugar, texture, flavor, sweetness and aroma, making it the most common ingredient for confectionary sweet food as well as flavoring. There are three varieties of chocolate available, chocolate coated or made of dark chocolate, milk chocolate and white chocolate (Hornby 1989). Dark chocolate contains a mild content of cocoa butter and a fat that naturally occurs in cocoa beans. These beans are made up of 34% of stearic acid, 24% of oleic acid, 25% of palmitic acid and 7% of other fatty acids (Roth 2007).

Milk chocolate contains two times the amount of antioxidants where as dark chocolate contains five times the amount of antioxidants (Moss 2002). While white chocolate only contain the texture and sweetness (Hemmelgarn 2006). Dark