World Chocolate Day: Death by Xocolatl (7/7)

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Maybe what we love is love?

Today is World Chocolate Day, July 7th, whereas National Chocolate Day is Oct. 28th in the U.S. The U.S. has seen a lot of growth in high-end chocolate, as taste buds improve and seek darker chocolate with health benefits rather than just white sugar, roach limbs (and other legal debris and contaminants). Beware the wrapper, the source of many heavy metals.

We have something the world doesn't.

In the beginning, the cacao tree made sweet fruit with bitter seeds (bean pods). These were fermented in the sun with most of the fruit removed, roasted and crushed into a paste full of cocoa butter. Sugar was added or a bitter drink called xocolatl was brewed. Early Mexicans loved it and treated it as a sacrament. It is not clear how the ETs or devas (the "gods") figured it out, but it became their favorite food on earth. Chocolatl (chocolate milk made with water) was so valuable, the individual seeds were used as coins at one time. Even today, Mexican grandmothers make chocolate on a stone mill, crushing and roasting and tempting children of all ages to try it. It may contain many feelgood chemicals, like those produced by the emotion love, but its addictive property is almost certainly due to its modern high sugar content. Roasting, while improving or strengthening the robust and bitter flavor. does more harm than good. Many of the precious constituents are burned away and what are left behind are acrylamides and burned (oxidized) fats. Go raw and savor in moderation.

(The Wall Street Journal) Oct. 27, 2015: To mark National Chocolate Day, Neuhaus U.S. Retail Manager Cindy Montambo joins Lunch Break to discuss the high-end chocolate industry, including growth opportunities and efforts to protect the sustainability of the supply chain of ingredients.

Buddhists must have tasted chocolate before Christians, as they arrived in Fusang. See Edward P. Vining's An Inglorious Columbus (1885) and Rick Fields' How the Swans Came to the Lake for the facts. This "Fat Happy Buddha" made of chocolate actually depicts the monk and bodhisattva Budai (Putai, Hotei), not the Buddha. Rub his belly for luck. His sack is full of candies for the kids, who loved him like Santa.

Why did Mexicans invent the "food of the gods" (Theobroma cacao)?