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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to food Stuff. I'm Anny Rees and

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Speaker 1: I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, And uh what what would you say?

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Speaker 1: This episode is like Annie Box chocolate because you never

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Speaker 1: know where you're gonna get except probably some chocolate history. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: maybe some chocolate science. A few sad things about chocolate.

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Speaker 1: Heads up, it's sad it is. We're gonna get that

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Speaker 1: other way right in the front. I guess you have

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Speaker 1: some idea what to expect. And big thanks to listener

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Speaker 1: Freda who suggested this forever ago, and she sent it

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Speaker 1: some really useful resources to check out, which was useful. Yes,

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Speaker 1: that's all. All suggestions are welcome, suggestions plus resources. Even

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Speaker 1: more so, m and um recommendation. If you haven't listened

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Speaker 1: to an episode on vanilla, you might want to go

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Speaker 1: do that because the history of these things are like

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Speaker 1: so intertwined. Oh absolutely, and even even sugar a little

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Speaker 1: bit too that because there's a lot of Yes, you'll

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Speaker 1: you'll see, you'll see. Alexandra Leef, who runs chocolate tours

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Speaker 1: of New York City, describes chocolate as quote the best

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Speaker 1: known food that nobody knows anything about. Huh so, what

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Speaker 1: is it chocolate? What is it? It? Depends kind of.

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Speaker 1: First a couple of terminology notes, because it can get

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Speaker 1: a little messy. So cacao usually describes the beans or

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Speaker 1: plants before any processing has been done. It's large. The

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Speaker 1: cocow nib or bean or seed is surrounded by the

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Speaker 1: cacao fruit. It's really big. The plethora of stuff made

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Speaker 1: um with the beans is chocolate processed. If it's been processed,

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Speaker 1: it's chocolate, and coco is the powdered form, except sometimes

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Speaker 1: the British use cocoa instead of cocow, and that really

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Speaker 1: confuses lots of articles. It's pretty you know, yeah, the

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Speaker 1: British always always making things more complicated and interesting chocolate.

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Speaker 1: The umbrella term now includes a lot of products that

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Speaker 1: are more sugar additives now than cocao, which is a

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Speaker 1: Star Wars reference for anybody anyway, I got it, Okay.

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Speaker 1: The cacao that is in there, more often than not

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Speaker 1: comes from the least flavorful but most sturdy of cocaw beings,

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Speaker 1: and that's changing us societally. We shift to that whole

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Speaker 1: being to bar more flavor, more sustainable kind of thing.

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Speaker 1: But you know, something to keep in mind. Yeah, a

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Speaker 1: little bit more about that in just a moment. As

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Speaker 1: we discussed in the vanilla episode, the root of the

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Speaker 1: word chocolate goes back to chuck al attle, the Aztec

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Speaker 1: word for a bitter drink made from cocao, and vanilla

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Speaker 1: helped sweeten the drink, and that's one of the reasons

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Speaker 1: it was so popular, both vanilla and coco, and especially

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Speaker 1: them together. The Latin root of theobroma cacao, the coco tree,

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Speaker 1: translates to food of the gods. Yes, divine food, one

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Speaker 1: of one of many. Yes. And there's a rumor about it,

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Speaker 1: isn't there la oh? Yes that Carl Linneus, who formalized

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Speaker 1: the system of naming organisms in the seventeen hundreds, named

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Speaker 1: it so after having read this French medical thesis on

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Speaker 1: chocolate medical thesis on Chocolate, I love it um, which

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Speaker 1: suggested that it is so red that it should be

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Speaker 1: the nourishment of the gods rather than nectar or ambrosia.

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Speaker 1: But it could you know, it could be either both. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: why do you have to just pick one's divine in general?

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Speaker 1: So what about the cow tree? What? What what's going

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Speaker 1: on there? It is a tropical tree. Um, it needs warm,

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Speaker 1: rainy kind of conditions. And a lot of shade in

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Speaker 1: order to do its thing. And there are three main

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Speaker 1: varieties of cacao trees, the hardy for stero, the finicky

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Speaker 1: but more complex flavored creole, and the trinitario, which is

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Speaker 1: a hybrid of the two that kind of sounds like

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Speaker 1: every fairy tale about three siblings, you know. Oh man,

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Speaker 1: I think, all right, let's write. Can we write some

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Speaker 1: children's storybooks? Is that a thing? You know that I'm

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Speaker 1: making it a thing I have. I have a whole

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Speaker 1: plan actually for a whole other children's story. Anyway, this

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Speaker 1: is this is outside the realm of chocolate. So let's

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Speaker 1: talk about harvesting those tasty, tasty beans. Um. Okay. The

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Speaker 1: flowers of the cow tree grow directly on the trees trunks.

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Speaker 1: The resulting fruit, often called pods, are these largish, oblong

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Speaker 1: things sort of like a slightly deflated ribbed football. And

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Speaker 1: that's the American football, not like a football, like a

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Speaker 1: soccer ball. Okay, it's sort of sort of like someone

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Speaker 1: stretched out a pumpkin. Yeah. Um. And they can come

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Speaker 1: in green or yellow or orange or red as they grow,

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Speaker 1: and then they will change colors as they ripen. And

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Speaker 1: they don't have to start as green and wind up

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Speaker 1: as red. They can kind of go the other way.

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Speaker 1: It gets confusing, apparently. Unlike man fruits, they can grow

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Speaker 1: year round, and a single tree will usually have a

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Speaker 1: bunch of pods at different stages of growth. Inside those pods, uh,

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Speaker 1: there's this sort of gooey, sweet white pulp surrounding some

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Speaker 1: twenty fifty seeds, which are the cocoa beans. When the

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Speaker 1: pods are ripe um, the spotting of which, like I said,

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Speaker 1: can be tricky and it's a job for experienced farmers.

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Speaker 1: They are cut from the tree by the stem. The

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Speaker 1: farmers then split the pods open with either a hammer

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Speaker 1: or a club, which is the preferred method but goes

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Speaker 1: a little bit slower, or a machette, which, as you

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Speaker 1: may imagine, is quicker but could damage the beans um.

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Speaker 1: And then you remove the beans plus some or all

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Speaker 1: of the pulp. At this stage, the beans are light

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Speaker 1: colored and don't really have a lot of flavor. In

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Speaker 1: order to make that happen, we need fermentation. What bacteria

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Speaker 1: poop is involved in chocolate. We're talking about again again, chocolate.

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Speaker 1: I feel like I feel like someone's already gotten a bing,

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Speaker 1: like like yeah, all right, So here we go. The

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Speaker 1: workers lay out these these pulpy beans in heaps or

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Speaker 1: in boxes and then cover them to keep them warm

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Speaker 1: and moist. The pulp around the beans liquefies, and the

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Speaker 1: beans kind of just soak in that broth for five

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Speaker 1: to seven days, with the workers stirring and draining it occasionally.

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Speaker 1: During the first twenty four hours or so, the seas

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Speaker 1: actually germinate and begin growing, and those we baby plants.

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Speaker 1: Enzymes convert all of the pulps sucros to a glucose

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Speaker 1: and fructose. With that high energy food available, a whole

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Speaker 1: bunch of bacteria and yeasts another fungi go to proverbial town. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Those micro organisms, by the way, I get in there

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Speaker 1: thanks to contact with workers, hands and all the equipment

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Speaker 1: that is used and reused cross contamination in the best

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Speaker 1: possible way. The germs also produce heat which can reach

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Speaker 1: like fifty degrees celsius a k and height and is

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Speaker 1: enough to kill the plant embryo and basically any unwanted microorganisms.

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Speaker 1: Among these bugs are our old friends, a sacro micy service,

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Speaker 1: a service. I'm gonna learn how to say that one

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Speaker 1: day one of these years. That's that's Brewer's yeast, which

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Speaker 1: is much nicer to say, and various species of Lactobacillus

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Speaker 1: a k a ealactic acid bacteria. These yeasts help break

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Speaker 1: down the pecton covering the seeds, which let's a kind

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Speaker 1: of two bitter compounds leak out and allows the alcohol

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Speaker 1: created by the yeasts in the bacteria to seep in,

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Speaker 1: along with all kinds of alcohol soluble flavor compounds that

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Speaker 1: are also excreted by the microbes. Five days into the process,

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Speaker 1: this gloup can contain up to a trillion microbes per gram.

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Speaker 1: That is a lot that is tasty, tasty, tasty, science tasty,

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Speaker 1: gloop scidence microbes. Absolutely, So you want to stop this

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Speaker 1: whole process before those microbes again growing in or on

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Speaker 1: the beans instead of just the pulp, because those bacteria

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Speaker 1: and fungi can can break down some of the fats

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Speaker 1: and the beans and cause all kinds of weird off flavors.

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Speaker 1: So you dry the beans out, you get them graded

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Speaker 1: is either fine or flavor beans or as bulk or

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Speaker 1: ordinary beans, and then you have ship them off for manufacturing,

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Speaker 1: the first step of which is roasting them to a

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Speaker 1: hundred and twenty one celsius a k a. About two

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Speaker 1: hundred and fifty fahrenheit, which kills off any remaining microbes

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Speaker 1: and also brings out a lot of those flavor and

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Speaker 1: aroma compounds. At the roasting stage, the beans still have

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Speaker 1: a husk on them, so they're shelled and then crushed

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Speaker 1: into nibs, a little little kernels of bean. Those nibs

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Speaker 1: or kernels can be sold as is or ground and

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Speaker 1: paste sometimes called chocolate liqueur, not like chocolate core, like

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Speaker 1: the stuff you would drink more confusion for further processing.

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Speaker 1: The paste is about half and half fats and solids.

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Speaker 1: If you remove some of the fats, which are cocoa butter,

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Speaker 1: from the paste, the remaining solids or cocoa powder. Cocoa

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Speaker 1: butter is often used to give some of the creaminess

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Speaker 1: and flavor to chocolate candies. It's also the only part

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Speaker 1: of the cocow plant that's actually in white chocolate, and

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Speaker 1: it is used of course on its own or mixed

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Speaker 1: with any number of things in the cosmetic industry. And

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Speaker 1: speaking of white chocolate, brief rundown very brief of chocolate types.

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Speaker 1: So you've got the unsweetened cocoa powder, unsweetened baking or

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Speaker 1: bitter chocolate made only of ground up cocoa beans, dark chocolate,

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Speaker 1: which contains no milk solids. Bitter sweet chocolate has to

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Speaker 1: have at least thirty five cocoa solids. Most have about fifty.

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Speaker 1: You've got semi sweet, which apparently is a mostly American

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Speaker 1: term made up by Nestley. You've got milk chocolate, which

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Speaker 1: has either condensed milk or dry milk solids. And white chocolate,

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Speaker 1: as mentioned only cocoa butter, and some don't even have that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: how check it out? Dare you? Yeah? All right, there

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Speaker 1: are more, but those are the basics. And thanks to

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Speaker 1: the spruce dot com for the handy breakdown. Oh yeah, absolutely,

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Speaker 1: as spruce is a great resource for many many things. Um.

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Speaker 1: One quick note here though, uh, as we talked about

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Speaker 1: all these different types of candy type things, candy making

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Speaker 1: sides is not what we're talking about here today. It's

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Speaker 1: the molecular ar. The molecular ar. Yes, the molecular stuff

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Speaker 1: is really fascinating, but also a lot that was too

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Speaker 1: much physics. Yeah, which I am very excited. Apparently, Lauren,

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Speaker 1: you've made shuffles. Yeah, I know about tempering and yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's super easy, like like I said before we started

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Speaker 1: the podcast, it's super easy as long as you follow

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Speaker 1: your instructions extremely exactly and don't get any water anywhere

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Speaker 1: near it. So I will fail, but I am down

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Speaker 1: to try. Yes, we won't be talking about that today.

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Speaker 1: That's the future future episode. Yeah. Oh I'm so excited. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: But anyway, back to chocolate in general. Yeah, Cope. Dauvoire

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Speaker 1: accounted for twenty of global coco production in fifteen, which

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Speaker 1: comes out to sixty of their export revenue. And today

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Speaker 1: we spend an annual seventy five billion dollars on chocolate,

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Speaker 1: and in America we didn't average twelve pounds of chocolate

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Speaker 1: a year. The industry of chocolate manufacturing is valued at

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Speaker 1: about four billion a year in the US, and worldwide,

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Speaker 1: the chocolate candy specifically candy industry is worth one hundred

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Speaker 1: billion US dollars. That's a lot of money. That is uh,

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Speaker 1: that's also a lot of twelve pounds of chocolate. That's

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Speaker 1: a lot of chocolate. Do you except I feel like

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Speaker 1: I probably eat more than that. I don't know. I

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Speaker 1: honestly would love to see a picture of a pound.

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Speaker 1: What a pound looks like in terms of chocolate bars,

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Speaker 1: although I feel like I get most of my chocolate

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Speaker 1: from baked goods, just my weakness. Yeah, yeah, that's harder

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Speaker 1: either way. There's a one hundred grand pun in there,

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Speaker 1: but it's a lot of chocolate. Um, so what about

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Speaker 1: the history. We'll talk about that after a quick break

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Speaker 1: for a word from our sponsor, and we're back, Thank

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Speaker 1: you sponsor. So onto the history. Yes, as we said

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Speaker 1: in our Vanilla episode, chocolate leaves behind a handy dandy

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Speaker 1: chemical residue, and that residue happens to be THEO bromine

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Speaker 1: or bro mean, which yes, can be found in all

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Speaker 1: kinds of really old stuff. It can including a five thousand,

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Speaker 1: five hundred year old ceramic and a piece of mortar

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Speaker 1: discovered in southern Ecuador. Historians think that Shaman's native to

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Speaker 1: the area ground up cacao for use in hallucinogenic potion. Yes,

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Speaker 1: if we're talking linguistic evidence by b C pre Ole

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Speaker 1: met cultures living in what is now Mexico, we're produced chocolate,

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Speaker 1: and but chocolate. We mean they were taking the cacao

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Speaker 1: beans and fermenting them back to your boobia, roasting them

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Speaker 1: and then grinding them up between two stones. With a

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Speaker 1: fire underneath and mixing the resulting paste with things like vanilla, honey, chili, peppers,

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Speaker 1: and water, and the final product was a froffy And

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Speaker 1: everywhere I read used that words that it must have

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Speaker 1: been pretty froffy chocolate drink that was meant to be

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Speaker 1: more invigorating and less sweet and comforting like the way

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Speaker 1: we view our hot chocolate today. Yeah. Absolutely. It was

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Speaker 1: also an important preservation process for the beans because by

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Speaker 1: itself the chocolate paste would last maybe a couple of weeks,

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Speaker 1: but they could also harden and dry it out into

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Speaker 1: these like tablets for storage and then reconstitute them up

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Speaker 1: to two years later. Just pretty cool, uh, And this

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Speaker 1: was the primary way people consume chocolate for centuries, as

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Speaker 1: a drink bit or drink that would put a pep

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Speaker 1: in your step. And of course, of course it was

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Speaker 1: seen as an afro dsac wen go because of its

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Speaker 1: perceived mood and libido boosting. Both the Aztec and the

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Speaker 1: my revered chocolate as a gift from the god, specifically

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Speaker 1: the feathered serpent god the Maya called ku kul Can,

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Speaker 1: and the Aztec cuts a cuddle. Chocolate was often a

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Speaker 1: part of royal feast, ceremonies or sacred rituals, and until

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Speaker 1: seventy seven, cow beans were used as currency. A hundred

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Speaker 1: of them would get you a fancy turkey. Ties into

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Speaker 1: so many other episodes. I know Aztec sacrifice victims who

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Speaker 1: were too bombed out to participate in the pre sacrifice festivities.

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Speaker 1: What was wrong with them? They were given a gourd

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Speaker 1: of chocolate to lift their spirits, and the chocolate had

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Speaker 1: the blood of past victims in it, So quite spirited. Indeed,

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Speaker 1: that works on two terrible levels. Thank thank you any

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Speaker 1: we can always count on you. Cow I don't know,

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Speaker 1: okay anyway. Pottery with coca resid on Earth and Honduras

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Speaker 1: goes back as far as four BC, and historians think

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Speaker 1: that the people at the time made an alcoholic beverage

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Speaker 1: by fermenting the pulp in casing the cocao beans. Later on,

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Speaker 1: around about the b CE CE switch over, the pulp

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Speaker 1: was a staple food for the Maya. The Aztec had

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Speaker 1: difficulty growing cocaw so they traded with the Maya, and

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Speaker 1: according to a few sources, in the sixteenth century, Aztec

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Speaker 1: emperor Montezuma drink three gallons of this stuff a day

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Speaker 1: to achieve maximum libido. Sounds like an eighties movie, It

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Speaker 1: really does. I am going to design the cover for

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Speaker 1: it after this. Oh, I'm so excited. It's going to

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Speaker 1: be excellent. Speaking of Montezuma, as we've mentioned in previous episodes,

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Speaker 1: he purportedly welcomed Spanish explorer Hernan Cortez his arrival in

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Speaker 1: fifteen nineteen or fifteen with, among other things, chocolate, like

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Speaker 1: fifty jugs of it. Yeah, a lot, and it was

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Speaker 1: poured and served golden cups, which is I think pretty

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Speaker 1: regularly you drink at the time. He had your chocolate

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Speaker 1: and chocolate and golden cup and some versions of this story,

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Speaker 1: montez Montezuma believed Cortes to be a deity reincarnated coming

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Speaker 1: back over the sea. It's the whole thing. It might

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Speaker 1: be apocryphal. We're not sure. Yeah, a lot of things

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Speaker 1: we read and look into. Anyway. In the writings of

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Speaker 1: both Columbus and Cortez, they described beans that were quote

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Speaker 1: almond like and that were used as currency. Cortez claimed

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Speaker 1: that chocolate caffeinated those who drank it, and upon his

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Speaker 1: arrival to Nicaragua on his fourth voyage, Columbus wrote he

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Speaker 1: that he was greeted by natives with a chocolate drink

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Speaker 1: that was spicy and bittery. He probably didn't use those words,

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Speaker 1: but those that was essentially what he was saying. When

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Speaker 1: Cortes returned to Europe with chocolate leaving decimation, decimation in

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Speaker 1: his wake for your hands didn't really go for it um.

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Speaker 1: As we mentioned in the vanilla episode, it was described

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Speaker 1: in the Spanish writing of you know, I looked it

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Speaker 1: up your Lamo Benzoni as um seemed more a drink

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Speaker 1: for pigs than a drink for humanity. Ouch. Yeah, it

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Speaker 1: wasn't sweet enough for their taste, but that was easily

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Speaker 1: remedied by adding some honey or cane sugar and some

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Speaker 1: cinnamon and later, yes, vanilla chocolate spread throughout Spain, but

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Speaker 1: still largely drink for the rich and elite often and

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Speaker 1: vibe from fancy cups and grave goblets, golden, golden vessels.

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Speaker 1: You weren't upper class if you didn't own some chocolate wear. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: specifically for that. Oh I love that. I wish it

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Speaker 1: hadn't gone out of fashion. Would you have some chocolate wear, Lauren? Heck, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I drink it like once a year, but I don't know,

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Speaker 1: I feel like that's about as often as I used

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Speaker 1: my teapot. Unsweetened chocolate was used medicinally for things like

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Speaker 1: upset stomach and oh yeah, they thought it was an

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Speaker 1: fordsiac of course. Yeah, Casanova reportedly loved this stuff, possibly

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Speaker 1: downing it after his daily breakfast of sixty morning oysters

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Speaker 1: another episode reference. And actually, I was thinking about this,

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Speaker 1: and I supposed, thanks to advertising and a successful misrepresentation

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Speaker 1: of Mesoamerican culture as being this really sensual thing, um,

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Speaker 1: chocolate is still seen as an aphrodisiac in Western culture

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Speaker 1: kind of yeah, yeah, and it's sort of spread. I mean,

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Speaker 1: Japan also has like Valentine's Day traditions of gifting chocolate

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Speaker 1: to each other, although I'm not sure how much of

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Speaker 1: that is perpetuated. And you know, the greeting card industry

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Speaker 1: versus yeah, actual thought, greeting card industry. While Cortez brings

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Speaker 1: the Spanish chocolate as the predominant theory, it relies on

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Speaker 1: some assumption. According to Sophie and Michael Coe's book The

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Speaker 1: True History of Chocolate, the first evidence of chocolate in

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Speaker 1: Spain was when Friars introduced it to Prince Philip, and

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Speaker 1: it would make sense for friars to have access to

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Speaker 1: cow too, since they're still being used in Mesoamerica for

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Speaker 1: rituals and religious ceremonies, and the Friars might pocket them

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00:19:08,560 --> 00:19:13,280
Speaker 1: and or sell them to whatever the case. Trade records

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Speaker 1: from the fifteen eighties document regular deliveries of chocolate to Spain.

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Speaker 1: Since cocoo really prefers a tropical, lowland climate, they relied

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Speaker 1: on long distance trade for their supply. Some accounts say

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Speaker 1: the first chocolate shop opened in Spain around this time,

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Speaker 1: but there isn't definitive proof. The first substantive proof of

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Speaker 1: that in Spain a chocolate shop, that is, is in

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Speaker 1: the sixteen thirties, when mostly female vendors might sell small

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Speaker 1: amounts of chocolate out of stands in places like Madrid. Okay,

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Speaker 1: but but so we're saying that nobody really liked it

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Speaker 1: that much at the time. Why go to all this trouble?

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Speaker 1: I know, I guess it had to do with the

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Speaker 1: dependence of the Spanish settling in the New World. They

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Speaker 1: they depended on these local goods, and despite massively decreasing

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Speaker 1: the indigenous population with disease and violence, the Spanish for

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Speaker 1: still the minority, and Spanish women exponentially. So this, along

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Speaker 1: with um a calculated strategy of using marriage and other

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Speaker 1: domestic situations to further their dominance, meant that there was

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Speaker 1: a lot of like mashing up and exchanging of cultures

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Speaker 1: and ideas often coerced in Mesoamerica. At the time, women

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Speaker 1: typically made the chocolate, and elite Spaniards married to these

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Speaker 1: women are who knew these women as the servants that

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Speaker 1: raised their children learned to like the stuff. When the

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Speaker 1: Spaniards returned to Europe bremmening with tales of their conquest,

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Speaker 1: the aristocracy wanted to emulate them, and then people wanted

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Speaker 1: to emulate the aristocracy and so on. It's one of

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Speaker 1: those interesting cases, and is pointed out by a terrific

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Speaker 1: article that we came across, the name of which I

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Speaker 1: don't have right in front of me. Um. Yeah, that

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00:20:59,119 --> 00:21:02,360
Speaker 1: that's pointing out that it's one of the bottom up

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00:21:02,880 --> 00:21:07,160
Speaker 1: um absorptions of a cultural idea versus a top down

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Speaker 1: kind of thing, which is the way that a lot

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00:21:08,640 --> 00:21:11,600
Speaker 1: of things go, you know, like like Queen says, I'm

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Speaker 1: wanna wear this white dress, and all of a sudden

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00:21:13,280 --> 00:21:17,680
Speaker 1: we're all wearing white dresses at weddings exactly, um and

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Speaker 1: kind of related. The love of chocolate in the New

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Speaker 1: World by both the Indigenous and the Spanish sparked rumors

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Speaker 1: of sorcery that the women used the chocolate they made

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Speaker 1: to be which people chocolate, which is because if there

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Speaker 1: is an opportunity to accuse a woman of being a witch,

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Speaker 1: why not by gully? Why not? Says history. Several inquisition

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Speaker 1: documents in cases site chocolate's alleged use in love potions

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Speaker 1: cure spells. Spanish author wand de Cardenas said about saving

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Speaker 1: saving chocolate from paganism, as he said by advocating its

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Speaker 1: use in the context of old old world medicine, because

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Speaker 1: that was okay, oh yeah, sure, that's full of all

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Speaker 1: the you know, leeches and humors and everything that we're

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Speaker 1: comfortable with, exactly. And in speaking of heres, he gave

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00:22:07,440 --> 00:22:10,360
Speaker 1: it a humor profile, which is not nearly as fun

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Speaker 1: as it sounds. Mine would be something like bad puns.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, No, no humors meaning the the

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Speaker 1: liquids that make up our universe or the substances rather,

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Speaker 1: And I can't wait to do an episode on that

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Speaker 1: because I do not know much about it at all. Oh,

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Speaker 1: it's terrifying. I love it. Okay, I've read some of

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Speaker 1: this guy's book and it was it was quite offensive.

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Speaker 1: It didn't accomplish what he wanted to either, because there

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Speaker 1: was an anxiety about chocolate spreading the culture of the

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Speaker 1: New World for a long time after. In sixty nineteen,

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Speaker 1: a Spanish physician wrote in his book that Spanish women

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Speaker 1: use chocolate quote to give occasion to avenge their jealousy,

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Speaker 1: jealousies learning and using spells from Indian women who are

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Speaker 1: the great masters, having been taught by the devil. And

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Speaker 1: to be clear, this wasn't a medical book. He as

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Speaker 1: a physician, but it wasn't a medical book. And that

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00:23:03,200 --> 00:23:07,480
Speaker 1: was the dialogue of a character known as the Indian Um.

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Speaker 1: But that's a taste of some of the racism that

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Speaker 1: came attached with chocolate and liking chocolate at the time. Huh. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Spain did manage to keep chocolate close to the chest

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Speaker 1: until the sixteen fifteen wedding of the daughter of Spanish

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Speaker 1: King Philip the Third to French King Louis, and France

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00:23:28,280 --> 00:23:31,840
Speaker 1: got a taste of chocolate. Royal courts and aristocracy across

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00:23:31,880 --> 00:23:34,080
Speaker 1: Europe and braced chocolate, and soon it was all the

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Speaker 1: rage of fashionable drink that make cure your ailments and

381
00:23:37,200 --> 00:23:41,000
Speaker 1: increase your libido, always showing off how rich and luxurious

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00:23:41,040 --> 00:23:45,000
Speaker 1: your lifestyle was. Before coffee or tea, chocolate was the

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00:23:45,000 --> 00:23:48,720
Speaker 1: original stimulant drink in Europe, and even when coffee and

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00:23:48,760 --> 00:23:51,879
Speaker 1: tea did hit the scene, drinking chocolate was at least

385
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Speaker 1: as popular, even though it was more than twice as expensive.

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00:23:57,040 --> 00:23:59,520
Speaker 1: It was so popular, in fact, that the Roman Catholic

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00:23:59,640 --> 00:24:02,800
Speaker 1: Church basically waved it in as okay to drink during

388
00:24:02,840 --> 00:24:05,280
Speaker 1: fasts because they were afraid that if they didn't, they

389
00:24:05,320 --> 00:24:09,840
Speaker 1: would drive off some of their wealthiest practitioners. And seriously,

390
00:24:09,960 --> 00:24:13,600
Speaker 1: it was so popular. People used to throw these chocolate parties,

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00:24:14,160 --> 00:24:16,960
Speaker 1: and chocolate didn't have the same gendering that coffee and

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00:24:17,000 --> 00:24:21,639
Speaker 1: t did, so it was relatively more equal opportunity chocolate parties. Also,

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00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:25,439
Speaker 1: T was gendered feminine in Europe because it was from Asia.

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00:24:25,600 --> 00:24:29,960
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, future episode, I got so mad. Wow

395
00:24:30,160 --> 00:24:35,680
Speaker 1: I didn't. Okay, all right, I'm back at the microphone. Yeah,

396
00:24:35,880 --> 00:24:39,200
Speaker 1: I never even thought about it. That's really okay. Here

397
00:24:39,200 --> 00:24:42,399
Speaker 1: we go. The increase and popularity of chocola, of course,

398
00:24:42,840 --> 00:24:46,280
Speaker 1: meant an increase in demand, and that meant the establishment

399
00:24:46,320 --> 00:24:49,800
Speaker 1: of European plantations, because of course the rest of imperialist

400
00:24:49,880 --> 00:24:53,520
Speaker 1: Europe wasn't going to let Spain dominate the cocow trade,

401
00:24:53,600 --> 00:24:56,080
Speaker 1: of course, not in uh and they set these up

402
00:24:56,080 --> 00:24:59,520
Speaker 1: in the Caribbean mes America islands off Africa's coast during

403
00:24:59,560 --> 00:25:03,720
Speaker 1: the seven and nineteenth centuries to grow and harvest the

404
00:25:03,840 --> 00:25:07,720
Speaker 1: time consuming and labor intensive cacao, and these plantations were

405
00:25:07,760 --> 00:25:11,640
Speaker 1: often powered with slate labor. Sugar and vanilla were tied

406
00:25:11,680 --> 00:25:14,040
Speaker 1: up in this as well, since those were two of

407
00:25:14,160 --> 00:25:17,959
Speaker 1: the chocolate enhancers of choice. African slaves were brought in

408
00:25:18,080 --> 00:25:21,720
Speaker 1: once the native Mesoamerican laborers were all but wiped out

409
00:25:21,840 --> 00:25:29,560
Speaker 1: by European diseases. Who through all this, Yeah, Spain was

410
00:25:29,600 --> 00:25:32,800
Speaker 1: importing thousands of pounds of cacao and chocolate per year

411
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Speaker 1: by the sixteen twenties, and in the thirty years between

412
00:25:35,680 --> 00:25:41,040
Speaker 1: sixteen twenty and sixteen fifty, Venezuela exported thirty one thousand pounds,

413
00:25:41,600 --> 00:25:44,800
Speaker 1: and from sixteen fifty to seventeen hundred that number shot

414
00:25:44,880 --> 00:25:50,520
Speaker 1: up to seven million pounds. But but there's a reason

415
00:25:50,600 --> 00:25:53,360
Speaker 1: why Spain is not the country that you perhaps think

416
00:25:53,359 --> 00:25:55,520
Speaker 1: of when you think of the chocolate industry in Europe.

417
00:25:55,600 --> 00:25:58,359
Speaker 1: That's true. The Dutch were the first European power to

418
00:25:58,400 --> 00:26:02,119
Speaker 1: break Spain's hold on out both by capturing the island

419
00:26:02,160 --> 00:26:06,280
Speaker 1: of Curasow in sixteen thirty four and by smuggling cacao

420
00:26:06,440 --> 00:26:10,480
Speaker 1: to Amsterdam. Not long after that, the Dutch became Europe's

421
00:26:10,480 --> 00:26:13,679
Speaker 1: main supply for cacao, and it was around this time

422
00:26:13,720 --> 00:26:16,760
Speaker 1: that the latter half of the seventeenth century that Europeans

423
00:26:16,920 --> 00:26:20,800
Speaker 1: were making solid chocolate candies as well as just drinking

424
00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:24,800
Speaker 1: chocolates um but they were like evaporating the drinking chocolate

425
00:26:24,800 --> 00:26:30,320
Speaker 1: into these solid candies, and during America's Revolutionary War, chocolate

426
00:26:30,320 --> 00:26:33,000
Speaker 1: was used as wages and it was included in the

427
00:26:33,040 --> 00:26:37,520
Speaker 1: soldiers rations. Folks were still using chocolate for medicinal purposes

428
00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:40,560
Speaker 1: at the time, though in eighteen six, our friend Brilliant

429
00:26:40,560 --> 00:26:46,360
Speaker 1: Savarin described chocolate with ambergris as the chocolate of the afflicted. Ambergrid,

430
00:26:46,400 --> 00:26:49,920
Speaker 1: by the way, is a sort of musky smelling waxy

431
00:26:49,960 --> 00:26:52,600
Speaker 1: stuff that was popular in perfume and medicine at the time,

432
00:26:52,800 --> 00:26:55,880
Speaker 1: and it comes from the guts of sperm whales, where

433
00:26:55,880 --> 00:26:59,560
Speaker 1: it forms like a bezo are from the undigested beaks

434
00:26:59,560 --> 00:27:07,720
Speaker 1: of this quid that they eat. That's fantastic, oh man perfumery. Okay, Anyway,

435
00:27:07,840 --> 00:27:11,080
Speaker 1: our French buddy recommended this mixture to quote any man

436
00:27:11,160 --> 00:27:13,520
Speaker 1: who has drunk too deeply of the cup of pleasure,

437
00:27:13,840 --> 00:27:16,880
Speaker 1: who finds his wit temporarily losing its edge, or who

438
00:27:16,960 --> 00:27:21,720
Speaker 1: is tortured by a fixed idea. Oh, drink some chocolate

439
00:27:21,720 --> 00:27:25,280
Speaker 1: and sperm whale stuff. Yeah, get better. We've been We

440
00:27:25,440 --> 00:27:27,280
Speaker 1: really have been trying to cure the hangover for a

441
00:27:27,320 --> 00:27:33,440
Speaker 1: long time, haven't we. Chocolate became more accessible when Conrad

442
00:27:33,560 --> 00:27:36,639
Speaker 1: Johanna's vun Houting, a Dutch chemist, came up with the

443
00:27:36,680 --> 00:27:40,040
Speaker 1: idea for the coco press. And basically what this press

444
00:27:40,040 --> 00:27:43,480
Speaker 1: did was take roasted cocao beans and squeeze out about

445
00:27:43,560 --> 00:27:46,560
Speaker 1: half the cocoa butter, leaving behind a dry cake like

446
00:27:46,760 --> 00:27:50,639
Speaker 1: thing that was then pulverized into a powder. This powder,

447
00:27:50,680 --> 00:27:53,919
Speaker 1: called Dutch cocoa, was often mixed with other things to

448
00:27:53,960 --> 00:27:58,680
Speaker 1: cut the bitterness, like alkaline salts and liquids. Very key

449
00:27:58,800 --> 00:28:03,080
Speaker 1: because this sment you could mold and solidified chocolate into

450
00:28:03,160 --> 00:28:06,400
Speaker 1: individual pieces, and it also lowered the cost of chocolate,

451
00:28:06,840 --> 00:28:11,680
Speaker 1: making it even more readily available to more people. And

452
00:28:11,840 --> 00:28:14,560
Speaker 1: helping deal over the price was the removal of chocolate

453
00:28:14,560 --> 00:28:17,639
Speaker 1: text in Europe at the same time. Oh yeah, that'll

454
00:28:17,760 --> 00:28:21,639
Speaker 1: that'll do it. Joseph Fry of British chocolate company J. S.

455
00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:24,199
Speaker 1: Fry and Sons made the first chocolate bar in eighteen

456
00:28:24,200 --> 00:28:28,280
Speaker 1: forty seven, a combination of cocoa butter, cocoa powder and sugar.

457
00:28:29,200 --> 00:28:35,760
Speaker 1: And then along comes the company Cadbury. Wait that that Cadbury,

458
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:40,840
Speaker 1: Yes that Cadbury, with boxes of chocolates available for purchase

459
00:28:40,880 --> 00:28:44,040
Speaker 1: in England by eighteen sixty eight, followed in a couple

460
00:28:44,040 --> 00:28:48,680
Speaker 1: of years by Nestley Yep that one. Uh, they had

461
00:28:48,720 --> 00:28:51,520
Speaker 1: a milk chocolate bar with the help of powder powdered

462
00:28:51,560 --> 00:28:56,160
Speaker 1: milks introduction in eighteen seventy five. Silkier, smoother chocolate was

463
00:28:56,200 --> 00:29:00,440
Speaker 1: made possible by Rodolph Lyntz huh invention of the counting

464
00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:05,240
Speaker 1: machine in eighteen seventy nine. Family owned Yes that One

465
00:29:05,280 --> 00:29:08,840
Speaker 1: companies Hershey and Mars got in the game soon after. Wait,

466
00:29:08,880 --> 00:29:12,160
Speaker 1: Mars was a dude. Mars was like a family name. Yeah,

467
00:29:12,200 --> 00:29:16,360
Speaker 1: what I have to say several times when I was

468
00:29:16,400 --> 00:29:20,760
Speaker 1: reading scientific research about chocolate and there's like research from Mars,

469
00:29:20,800 --> 00:29:23,840
Speaker 1: and I thought they were researching chocolate on Mars. And

470
00:29:23,840 --> 00:29:27,640
Speaker 1: then I realized Mars isn't quite as popular in the US,

471
00:29:27,760 --> 00:29:30,520
Speaker 1: I suppose as it is in Europe. I don't know,

472
00:29:32,040 --> 00:29:35,160
Speaker 1: random spoutings in the middle of a podcast. Um. With

473
00:29:35,280 --> 00:29:38,800
Speaker 1: the twentieth century, demand only increased, which put more and

474
00:29:38,840 --> 00:29:41,880
Speaker 1: more strain on the equator adjacent regions that are capable

475
00:29:41,880 --> 00:29:45,680
Speaker 1: of growing this stuff. The average cacao farmer makes two

476
00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:48,440
Speaker 1: dollars a day. And that's like today, not like, yeah,

477
00:29:48,520 --> 00:29:51,680
Speaker 1: this is where this is modern. We're talking modern now.

478
00:29:52,560 --> 00:29:57,200
Speaker 1: Several of the plantations West African countries use that provide

479
00:29:57,200 --> 00:29:59,520
Speaker 1: a good chunk of cow supply for big companies, use

480
00:29:59,680 --> 00:30:04,160
Speaker 1: child and slave labor, impacting and estimated two million children

481
00:30:04,600 --> 00:30:08,840
Speaker 1: working with chainsaws and other dangerous tools like machetes. Industrial

482
00:30:08,880 --> 00:30:12,360
Speaker 1: chemicals used to keep away insects, and there are truly

483
00:30:12,400 --> 00:30:14,640
Speaker 1: horrific stories from people who are forced to work on

484
00:30:14,720 --> 00:30:17,360
Speaker 1: account farms as children. One of the children who worked

485
00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:20,240
Speaker 1: on one said in a BBC documentary on the subject,

486
00:30:20,640 --> 00:30:24,760
Speaker 1: when people eat chocolate, they are eating my flesh. Some

487
00:30:24,800 --> 00:30:28,720
Speaker 1: companies are working with the African countries to reduce this number. Ferraro,

488
00:30:28,920 --> 00:30:31,160
Speaker 1: for example, is set a date of twenty to get

489
00:30:31,240 --> 00:30:33,840
Speaker 1: rid of slavery at the farms and plantations that it

490
00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:37,400
Speaker 1: uses for cacao mars as in The Company not the

491
00:30:37,440 --> 00:30:42,000
Speaker 1: Planet has set a similar benchmark. Several big hitters in

492
00:30:42,040 --> 00:30:44,640
Speaker 1: the chocolate world came together to form the nonprofit group,

493
00:30:44,760 --> 00:30:48,160
Speaker 1: the International Coco Initiative, with the goal of finding some solutions,

494
00:30:48,200 --> 00:30:52,720
Speaker 1: but it's slow going. Yeah, it's one of those really

495
00:30:52,760 --> 00:30:56,120
Speaker 1: unfortunate situations where people at multiple points in the chain

496
00:30:56,200 --> 00:31:01,840
Speaker 1: have a opportunity to profit, and so it's difficult to

497
00:31:01,840 --> 00:31:06,760
Speaker 1: get changes enacted right And unfortunately, there's currently no real

498
00:31:06,800 --> 00:31:10,920
Speaker 1: way for consumers to consistently know whether or not slave

499
00:31:11,000 --> 00:31:15,320
Speaker 1: labor went into their chocolate. Labels like fair Trade can't

500
00:31:15,480 --> 00:31:20,400
Speaker 1: guarantee that those products were made without slave labor. Fortunate

501
00:31:20,400 --> 00:31:22,640
Speaker 1: as a good breakdown of what the big companies are

502
00:31:22,640 --> 00:31:24,200
Speaker 1: doing if you want to know more, and there's a

503
00:31:24,240 --> 00:31:26,920
Speaker 1: blog post on Huffington Post with a list of child

504
00:31:27,320 --> 00:31:29,680
Speaker 1: labor free chocolate companies and things we can do as

505
00:31:29,680 --> 00:31:32,800
Speaker 1: consumers just basically get informed, get your friends informed, and

506
00:31:32,840 --> 00:31:35,400
Speaker 1: let the companies know this is not okay. It is

507
00:31:35,480 --> 00:31:40,040
Speaker 1: a huge and complex problem. It involves poverty and so

508
00:31:40,040 --> 00:31:44,760
Speaker 1: so much moving pieces. Yeah, yeah, and so right, doing

509
00:31:44,800 --> 00:31:47,360
Speaker 1: research is basically the best you can do. We'll try

510
00:31:47,400 --> 00:31:49,239
Speaker 1: to send out some of those links that we were

511
00:31:49,280 --> 00:31:51,840
Speaker 1: just talking about on social media after this episode airs. Yes,

512
00:31:51,920 --> 00:31:57,240
Speaker 1: absolutely and on that depressing but completely necessary note. Let's

513
00:31:57,280 --> 00:31:59,720
Speaker 1: take a quick break for a word from our sponsor

514
00:32:10,040 --> 00:32:14,239
Speaker 1: and we're back, Thank you sponsor. So this brings us

515
00:32:14,280 --> 00:32:19,440
Speaker 1: to our science e healthy kind of manufacturing sort of

516
00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:22,520
Speaker 1: section here in other words that I haven't Josh weedened

517
00:32:22,560 --> 00:32:27,720
Speaker 1: like that. Um So, first of all, is chocolate a drug?

518
00:32:28,720 --> 00:32:33,240
Speaker 1: Is it? Well? Yes, Some historians think that it was

519
00:32:33,280 --> 00:32:36,160
Speaker 1: only ever accepted in Europe because it was presented as

520
00:32:36,200 --> 00:32:39,800
Speaker 1: a medicine, though their standards for medicines could be pretty low.

521
00:32:40,120 --> 00:32:43,360
Speaker 1: It depends on your definition of a drug. Cocao contains

522
00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:47,000
Speaker 1: a bunch of different psychoactive compounds and meaning chemicals that

523
00:32:47,120 --> 00:32:50,920
Speaker 1: do stuff to the stuff that your brain is doing. Okay,

524
00:32:51,200 --> 00:32:55,880
Speaker 1: So it's got stimulants like caffeine, which speeds up nerve

525
00:32:55,920 --> 00:32:59,280
Speaker 1: cell activity and constricts blood vessels in the brain, which

526
00:32:59,320 --> 00:33:03,120
Speaker 1: can cure aches, and as a byproduct of the nerve

527
00:33:03,200 --> 00:33:07,160
Speaker 1: cell activity can cause a release of adrenaline, which affects

528
00:33:07,160 --> 00:33:10,640
Speaker 1: your blood flow and muscle tension, and thus can help

529
00:33:10,640 --> 00:33:15,760
Speaker 1: with stuff like cramps. There's also theobromine, which increases your

530
00:33:15,840 --> 00:33:19,480
Speaker 1: heart rate and widens your blood vessels. There's also a

531
00:33:19,520 --> 00:33:23,560
Speaker 1: couple of pleasure producers in their cannabinoids, yes, the same

532
00:33:23,640 --> 00:33:26,320
Speaker 1: kind of thing that's in marijuana, which can decrease pain

533
00:33:26,360 --> 00:33:32,160
Speaker 1: sensitivity and trigger euphoric pleasure hormones like neo epinephrine and

534
00:33:32,320 --> 00:33:36,160
Speaker 1: dopamine in the brain. Also, there's phenal ethyl amine, which

535
00:33:36,200 --> 00:33:40,200
Speaker 1: does very similar things, And vaguely in this category are

536
00:33:40,280 --> 00:33:45,080
Speaker 1: fats and sugars, which may stimulate opiate production in the brain.

537
00:33:45,440 --> 00:33:48,760
Speaker 1: More on that thing in our sugar episodes, I was

538
00:33:48,840 --> 00:33:50,560
Speaker 1: just thinking that that it might be kind of an

539
00:33:50,600 --> 00:33:57,560
Speaker 1: association that you build when you eat chocolate that is sugary. Yeah. However,

540
00:33:58,160 --> 00:34:01,320
Speaker 1: many chocolate candies do not contain a whole lot of

541
00:34:01,320 --> 00:34:04,520
Speaker 1: those things, except maybe the fats and sugars part. Although

542
00:34:04,960 --> 00:34:07,360
Speaker 1: some of those some of the compounds maybe working together

543
00:34:07,480 --> 00:34:11,040
Speaker 1: to create a greater effect than they otherwise want on

544
00:34:11,080 --> 00:34:14,600
Speaker 1: their own. For example, some research has indicated that the

545
00:34:14,680 --> 00:34:20,239
Speaker 1: effects of caffeine and cannabinoids together can create a greater effect, which,

546
00:34:20,360 --> 00:34:23,200
Speaker 1: although it is illicit in many of these are United States,

547
00:34:23,560 --> 00:34:27,319
Speaker 1: maybe why marijuana and chocolate are packaged in the same

548
00:34:27,560 --> 00:34:31,920
Speaker 1: package sometimes, But the amount of caffeine in chocolate isn't

549
00:34:31,960 --> 00:34:34,600
Speaker 1: anything to be worried about as long as you're snacking

550
00:34:34,640 --> 00:34:37,920
Speaker 1: in moderation. A single cup of coffee, for example, can

551
00:34:37,960 --> 00:34:40,520
Speaker 1: butt you up pretty close to the recommended limit of

552
00:34:40,560 --> 00:34:43,319
Speaker 1: caffeine per day, which is two hundred milligrams that's set

553
00:34:43,360 --> 00:34:46,920
Speaker 1: up by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. But

554
00:34:47,440 --> 00:34:50,880
Speaker 1: in terms of chocolate, even high cocoa chocolate only ranges

555
00:34:50,920 --> 00:34:55,560
Speaker 1: to about sixty milligrams per every two ounces. That's fifty

556
00:34:55,600 --> 00:34:58,800
Speaker 1: grams of chocolate. You're probably gonna be fine. Here's another

557
00:34:59,080 --> 00:35:02,800
Speaker 1: headline about chocolate. Oh yeah, is my dog going to

558
00:35:02,880 --> 00:35:07,799
Speaker 1: die of chocolate boisoning? I hope not. Yeah. It is

559
00:35:07,800 --> 00:35:12,080
Speaker 1: true that dogs and cats should not eat chocolate, but okay.

560
00:35:12,200 --> 00:35:15,840
Speaker 1: Dogs and cats process THEO bromine more slowly than humans,

561
00:35:15,840 --> 00:35:18,120
Speaker 1: which means that they can eat more of it than

562
00:35:18,400 --> 00:35:23,680
Speaker 1: their adorable fuzzy bodies can safely process fairly quickly. But again,

563
00:35:24,000 --> 00:35:27,239
Speaker 1: most chocolate doesn't contain that much. I mean, like, don't

564
00:35:27,239 --> 00:35:29,600
Speaker 1: feed your dog a pound of chocolate. That's it's not

565
00:35:29,600 --> 00:35:31,839
Speaker 1: good for anybody. But if your dog gets into some

566
00:35:31,920 --> 00:35:35,120
Speaker 1: candy or baked goods or ice cream, probably the worst

567
00:35:35,120 --> 00:35:38,239
Speaker 1: thing that's going to happen is minor digestive issues. If

568
00:35:38,280 --> 00:35:41,480
Speaker 1: your dog is eating chocolate and then acts nervous or shaky,

569
00:35:41,640 --> 00:35:45,520
Speaker 1: or refuses other food, or has continued digestive issues, definitely

570
00:35:45,560 --> 00:35:48,080
Speaker 1: calivet And if you're worried either way, or if your

571
00:35:48,120 --> 00:35:50,840
Speaker 1: dog is very small, go on and call of it anyway,

572
00:35:51,040 --> 00:35:52,880
Speaker 1: just to be sure you're doing all you can, because

573
00:35:52,920 --> 00:35:57,000
Speaker 1: the theobromine can create a stroke like conditions and animals.

574
00:35:57,040 --> 00:36:00,640
Speaker 1: That's the problem there, and that's not what anybody for

575
00:36:00,680 --> 00:36:05,719
Speaker 1: a pepper and onto nutrition, nutrition stuff, nutrition stuff. So

576
00:36:05,880 --> 00:36:10,399
Speaker 1: perhaps obviously the nutritional properties of chocolate depend on the

577
00:36:10,480 --> 00:36:14,200
Speaker 1: cocoa to cocoa butter ratio and what you've mixed them with,

578
00:36:14,320 --> 00:36:18,120
Speaker 1: including sugars and creamy things like milk. Cocoa nibs on

579
00:36:18,160 --> 00:36:20,799
Speaker 1: their own are a high calorie food. There about a

580
00:36:20,840 --> 00:36:23,440
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty calories per ounce, which is twenty eight

581
00:36:23,480 --> 00:36:28,240
Speaker 1: grams and composition wise they're fat, but they also contain

582
00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:31,520
Speaker 1: some twelve percent protein and a lot of dietary fiber

583
00:36:31,840 --> 00:36:36,000
Speaker 1: and essentially no sugar. So in moderation this cocoa nibs,

584
00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:38,719
Speaker 1: the purest form of the cow plant that you can get,

585
00:36:39,120 --> 00:36:41,440
Speaker 1: are pretty good for you. It'll fill you up fast

586
00:36:41,920 --> 00:36:45,480
Speaker 1: and has you know, a little bit of protein. However,

587
00:36:45,960 --> 00:36:51,520
Speaker 1: even high coco dark chocolate is significantly more sugary. Generally,

588
00:36:51,640 --> 00:36:54,960
Speaker 1: the less cocoa and more sweeteners and creamy things that

589
00:36:55,000 --> 00:36:57,279
Speaker 1: are involved in chocolates, the more of a treat they

590
00:36:57,280 --> 00:37:00,000
Speaker 1: should be considered. But it's not like you're eating chocolate

591
00:37:00,040 --> 00:37:06,080
Speaker 1: for your health, are you? Well? Wait, wait are you?

592
00:37:07,160 --> 00:37:10,919
Speaker 1: People certainly have been. There are a lot of health

593
00:37:10,920 --> 00:37:14,680
Speaker 1: claims and studies out there about chocolate and cows component chemicals,

594
00:37:15,080 --> 00:37:17,480
Speaker 1: some of which are flavonoids, which are a group of

595
00:37:17,520 --> 00:37:21,000
Speaker 1: antioxidant compounds that have been associated with lower risks of

596
00:37:21,040 --> 00:37:25,080
Speaker 1: cardiovascular conditions like heart attacks and strokes, plus lower risks

597
00:37:25,120 --> 00:37:29,560
Speaker 1: of diseases like cancer and diabetes under particular conditions. For example,

598
00:37:29,600 --> 00:37:32,120
Speaker 1: one study of the Kuna people in Panama, who drink

599
00:37:32,160 --> 00:37:35,520
Speaker 1: as many as forty cups of their traditional bitter cocoa

600
00:37:35,560 --> 00:37:40,200
Speaker 1: per week develop those aforementioned diseases and conditions at lower rates,

601
00:37:40,440 --> 00:37:43,279
Speaker 1: and in the case of cancer, much lower rates than

602
00:37:43,360 --> 00:37:46,759
Speaker 1: other people from Panama. But there are some problems with

603
00:37:46,800 --> 00:37:50,760
Speaker 1: this and other studies into chocolates potential health benefits. First

604
00:37:50,760 --> 00:37:53,440
Speaker 1: of all, the studies are often at least partially funded

605
00:37:53,480 --> 00:37:58,000
Speaker 1: by or otherwise connected to confectionary giants like the aforementioned

606
00:37:58,239 --> 00:38:01,879
Speaker 1: Mars Incorporated. Doesn't necessarily mean that their results are wrong,

607
00:38:01,960 --> 00:38:04,760
Speaker 1: but it is a thing to keep in mind. Secondly,

608
00:38:04,840 --> 00:38:08,600
Speaker 1: the amount of flavor als actually present in consumer chocolate

609
00:38:08,680 --> 00:38:12,600
Speaker 1: products depends on on the beans themselves, on how hot

610
00:38:12,640 --> 00:38:15,960
Speaker 1: they get during manufacturing, on how much any dairy in

611
00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:19,400
Speaker 1: your chocolate is interfering with the flavoral uptake, which is

612
00:38:19,400 --> 00:38:23,080
Speaker 1: a thing that happens, and how much cocoa solid is

613
00:38:23,120 --> 00:38:27,960
Speaker 1: actually in your finished chocolate product. For example, they're One

614
00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:30,399
Speaker 1: study in two thousand four showed that with just two

615
00:38:30,480 --> 00:38:33,359
Speaker 1: weeks of eating one point six ounces of a high

616
00:38:33,400 --> 00:38:38,560
Speaker 1: flavoral chocolate per day, that improved the function of participants

617
00:38:39,200 --> 00:38:42,719
Speaker 1: blood vessels, inner walls. But what on Earth counts as

618
00:38:42,760 --> 00:38:46,040
Speaker 1: a high flavoral chocolate? For that we have to turn

619
00:38:46,040 --> 00:38:53,680
Speaker 1: into the future. We both even kind of looked in

620
00:38:53,719 --> 00:38:55,880
Speaker 1: the same direction when we did that. That's nice. I

621
00:38:55,880 --> 00:38:59,040
Speaker 1: think that's called America face. I think that's the thing.

622
00:39:00,719 --> 00:39:04,799
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure. Okay, I believe you. We both just

623
00:39:04,880 --> 00:39:09,520
Speaker 1: did America phase. Alright. So the future, what's going on.

624
00:39:10,480 --> 00:39:14,359
Speaker 1: Researchers are working on manufacturing processes that can retain more

625
00:39:14,440 --> 00:39:18,560
Speaker 1: of cocoa's flavanols, and meanwhile, back on the raw production

626
00:39:18,600 --> 00:39:22,320
Speaker 1: and other researchers are working on developing higher yield co

627
00:39:22,440 --> 00:39:26,680
Speaker 1: cow trees, which is good because they're pretty finicky plants

628
00:39:26,760 --> 00:39:30,279
Speaker 1: and some thirty of the world's crop has traditionally been

629
00:39:30,320 --> 00:39:34,560
Speaker 1: lost every year to disease and pests and hip hip parae.

630
00:39:34,640 --> 00:39:41,040
Speaker 1: Climate change is making this worse because warming climates they

631
00:39:41,040 --> 00:39:45,000
Speaker 1: allow for more diseases and pest rereading, and also weather

632
00:39:45,040 --> 00:39:48,479
Speaker 1: extremes are bad. Um top of that, there's a lack

633
00:39:48,520 --> 00:39:51,720
Speaker 1: of genetic diversity, which means if one strain of cacao

634
00:39:51,840 --> 00:39:54,840
Speaker 1: being is susceptible, probably a lot of them are. A

635
00:39:54,880 --> 00:39:58,520
Speaker 1: few years back, scientists sequence the genome researchers believe is

636
00:39:58,560 --> 00:40:02,239
Speaker 1: responsible for inn of our cacal Scientists are applying this

637
00:40:02,320 --> 00:40:05,640
Speaker 1: data to all sorts of things like increasing yield and

638
00:40:05,760 --> 00:40:09,480
Speaker 1: um increasing disease resistance. So a lot of things being

639
00:40:09,520 --> 00:40:13,960
Speaker 1: worked on there. UM folks are also working on setting

640
00:40:13,960 --> 00:40:17,480
Speaker 1: out the complete microbiology of the chocolate fermentation process in

641
00:40:17,600 --> 00:40:20,920
Speaker 1: order to reduce waste from unwanted microbe growth and to

642
00:40:21,080 --> 00:40:25,759
Speaker 1: make tastier and tastier chocolate all the time. That's just good.

643
00:40:26,080 --> 00:40:28,440
Speaker 1: I um, I don't know. If you've heard this, you

644
00:40:28,560 --> 00:40:31,800
Speaker 1: probably have chocolate. I'm learning attracts a lot of these headlines,

645
00:40:31,840 --> 00:40:35,799
Speaker 1: these disastrous Oh yeah, but I've heard that there will

646
00:40:35,840 --> 00:40:38,600
Speaker 1: be no real chocolate and I was expecting to like

647
00:40:39,160 --> 00:40:41,600
Speaker 1: find something about that. I did. I did find something

648
00:40:41,680 --> 00:40:44,000
Speaker 1: kind of about it. But it seems more like if

649
00:40:44,040 --> 00:40:49,040
Speaker 1: we don't do anything, then eventually we won't have chocolate.

650
00:40:49,080 --> 00:40:52,759
Speaker 1: But we are doing stuff, and it's I mean, I

651
00:40:53,000 --> 00:40:56,160
Speaker 1: don't know. That's it's really hard to predict exactly what

652
00:40:56,239 --> 00:40:58,480
Speaker 1: kind of effects climate change is going to have on

653
00:40:59,040 --> 00:41:03,959
Speaker 1: single areas like us. Yes, that is true, um, but

654
00:41:04,080 --> 00:41:08,359
Speaker 1: you know, let's uh, let's talk about candy. Oh yeah,

655
00:41:08,360 --> 00:41:12,040
Speaker 1: and one more big scary headline, Is it true I'm

656
00:41:12,080 --> 00:41:18,480
Speaker 1: eating insect legs? What? What? What is that a thing?

657
00:41:19,160 --> 00:41:21,680
Speaker 1: Did you not have you never heard this before? I

658
00:41:21,719 --> 00:41:23,799
Speaker 1: think I think I had, But it was big when

659
00:41:23,800 --> 00:41:26,440
Speaker 1: I was in elementary school. Oh no, I think I

660
00:41:26,520 --> 00:41:30,319
Speaker 1: just ignored it. Yeah, like I eat insect legs all

661
00:41:30,320 --> 00:41:33,520
Speaker 1: the time. That's insect leg laur And that's what they

662
00:41:33,520 --> 00:41:38,719
Speaker 1: called me on the playground. What a nickname. According to

663
00:41:39,160 --> 00:41:42,360
Speaker 1: an f d A compliance policy guideline first published in

664
00:41:43,640 --> 00:41:47,280
Speaker 1: and last was that revised in two thousand titled Chocolate

665
00:41:47,280 --> 00:41:52,120
Speaker 1: and Chocolate core Adulteration with insect and rodent Filth, the

666
00:41:52,200 --> 00:41:56,040
Speaker 1: FDA can sees any chocolate if six separate subsamples of

667
00:41:56,080 --> 00:41:59,279
Speaker 1: one grams are about two regular size chocolate bars have

668
00:41:59,480 --> 00:42:04,000
Speaker 1: over sixty insect fragments on average, or if any single

669
00:42:04,080 --> 00:42:08,120
Speaker 1: of those substant subsamples has ninety or more insect fragments.

670
00:42:09,040 --> 00:42:11,640
Speaker 1: For rodents, if you're interested, it's an average of one

671
00:42:11,760 --> 00:42:16,399
Speaker 1: rodent hair one point zero rodent hair from six gram

672
00:42:16,440 --> 00:42:20,680
Speaker 1: sub subsamples, or if any single one hundred gram sample

673
00:42:20,760 --> 00:42:24,239
Speaker 1: has three rodent hairs. And apparently the story was big

674
00:42:24,239 --> 00:42:27,000
Speaker 1: in twelve although, like I said, I first heard about

675
00:42:27,000 --> 00:42:30,560
Speaker 1: it in elementary school. Um and when the news outlets

676
00:42:30,560 --> 00:42:33,480
Speaker 1: were reporting the reporting it, they were saying that if

677
00:42:33,480 --> 00:42:36,520
Speaker 1: you had a chocolate allergy, what you're reacting to was

678
00:42:36,560 --> 00:42:42,320
Speaker 1: the insect parts, specifically cockroach insect parts. However, chocolate is

679
00:42:42,320 --> 00:42:45,960
Speaker 1: not alone in this. It's really really hard to avoid

680
00:42:46,000 --> 00:42:49,799
Speaker 1: insect parts in your food completely, and attempting to do

681
00:42:49,880 --> 00:42:52,759
Speaker 1: so would be worse for your health, most likely since

682
00:42:52,760 --> 00:42:58,759
Speaker 1: it happens at the source and would require using more pesticides. Yeah, like, like, seriously,

683
00:42:58,960 --> 00:43:02,919
Speaker 1: I know that one point five hairs per chocolate bar

684
00:43:03,440 --> 00:43:06,920
Speaker 1: sounds like a drastically large amount of rodent hair to

685
00:43:06,920 --> 00:43:11,920
Speaker 1: be allowable. Um, But if you're squeamish about insects or

686
00:43:12,120 --> 00:43:15,399
Speaker 1: or or other pest waste like that, probably just never

687
00:43:15,480 --> 00:43:17,239
Speaker 1: read any of the f d A S or any

688
00:43:17,280 --> 00:43:20,799
Speaker 1: other governing bodies regulations about how much pest contamination per

689
00:43:20,800 --> 00:43:24,560
Speaker 1: part is allowed in any food, and definitely never get

690
00:43:24,600 --> 00:43:26,839
Speaker 1: a job in the food industry. There are lots of

691
00:43:26,840 --> 00:43:29,520
Speaker 1: things that humans can and in fact often do, to

692
00:43:29,560 --> 00:43:32,960
Speaker 1: prevent the sort of contamination, but pests do happen no

693
00:43:33,000 --> 00:43:36,160
Speaker 1: matter how careful we are. Furthermore, if you are allergic

694
00:43:36,200 --> 00:43:39,800
Speaker 1: to cockroaches, chocolate is probably not the greatest of your worries.

695
00:43:40,080 --> 00:43:43,000
Speaker 1: It is a fairly common allergy to have. Studies found

696
00:43:43,080 --> 00:43:45,759
Speaker 1: that of humans who have allergies. Anywhere from four point

697
00:43:45,880 --> 00:43:48,840
Speaker 1: seven to twelve point five percent may be sensitive to

698
00:43:48,880 --> 00:43:53,680
Speaker 1: cockroache allergens, something I did not know, especially especially because

699
00:43:53,680 --> 00:43:57,080
Speaker 1: cockroaches are heck and everywhere. In the United States, the

700
00:43:57,239 --> 00:44:01,920
Speaker 1: rate of homes possessing detectable levels of cockroage allergens ranges

701
00:44:01,960 --> 00:44:08,760
Speaker 1: between in like wealthy, spaced out suburbs and in poorer,

702
00:44:08,960 --> 00:44:13,080
Speaker 1: more crunched in urban areas, which is a thing that

703
00:44:13,120 --> 00:44:16,200
Speaker 1: we all basically just have to be okay with because

704
00:44:16,360 --> 00:44:19,560
Speaker 1: cockroaches aren't going anywhere. You can take steps in your

705
00:44:19,600 --> 00:44:22,320
Speaker 1: own home by keeping everything clean and dry and uncluttered,

706
00:44:22,560 --> 00:44:25,000
Speaker 1: and by using stuff like traps if it's safe for

707
00:44:25,080 --> 00:44:28,840
Speaker 1: you and your pets and your kids. And speaking of

708
00:44:28,880 --> 00:44:31,760
Speaker 1: being okay with it, a few years ago in France,

709
00:44:32,040 --> 00:44:37,400
Speaker 1: Chocolate Tier purposefully put bugs on his chocolates, like on

710
00:44:37,640 --> 00:44:41,920
Speaker 1: not not in it, on top like a decoration. They

711
00:44:41,920 --> 00:44:45,840
Speaker 1: were a topping crickets and worms dusted with gold. I

712
00:44:45,880 --> 00:44:48,160
Speaker 1: got to read all about cricket diets and this because

713
00:44:48,200 --> 00:44:50,440
Speaker 1: he was particular about what he would feed the crickets

714
00:44:50,440 --> 00:44:52,560
Speaker 1: that he put on there. And I can tell you

715
00:44:52,600 --> 00:44:55,200
Speaker 1: I was not expecting the research to go this way

716
00:44:55,880 --> 00:45:03,560
Speaker 1: cricket diets in the chocolate episode. U. Yeah, there's nothing

717
00:45:03,600 --> 00:45:06,759
Speaker 1: more to say on that currently not currently um oh,

718
00:45:06,840 --> 00:45:09,560
Speaker 1: but but side note, if you are sensitive to chocolate

719
00:45:10,080 --> 00:45:14,480
Speaker 1: and you do have other like sneezy, sniffle e, rashy,

720
00:45:14,600 --> 00:45:18,920
Speaker 1: migraine allergies, it could be cockroaches. Could Yeah, maybe I

721
00:45:18,960 --> 00:45:22,520
Speaker 1: get a skin test from a doctor if you're concerned. Um. However,

722
00:45:22,560 --> 00:45:25,640
Speaker 1: if you're sensitive to gluten or have Celiac disease, there's

723
00:45:25,640 --> 00:45:28,520
Speaker 1: a protein in cocoa that's really similar in structures, so

724
00:45:29,000 --> 00:45:31,680
Speaker 1: that could explain you're having a kind of digestive tract

725
00:45:31,719 --> 00:45:36,440
Speaker 1: reaction to chocolate. Some symptoms could also be due to dairy, caffeine,

726
00:45:36,600 --> 00:45:40,840
Speaker 1: soy or nuts sensitivities, or even nickel sensitivities, which coco

727
00:45:41,239 --> 00:45:43,600
Speaker 1: and a lot of nuts that might be in chocolate

728
00:45:43,640 --> 00:45:47,360
Speaker 1: bars are high end. Or it could be the chocolate itself.

729
00:45:48,040 --> 00:45:53,600
Speaker 1: If you have symptoms, especially like anaphylaxis type symptoms, difficulty breathing, hives,

730
00:45:53,600 --> 00:45:57,040
Speaker 1: swelling in the mouth area, vomiting, uh, definitely talked to

731
00:45:57,080 --> 00:45:59,600
Speaker 1: an allergist and be careful about what you eat in

732
00:45:59,600 --> 00:46:04,880
Speaker 1: the mean Aile. I had a friend Um in middle

733
00:46:04,880 --> 00:46:08,600
Speaker 1: school and high school and she she was allergic to

734
00:46:08,680 --> 00:46:11,960
Speaker 1: chocolate and she you know, I couldn't enjoy parties and

735
00:46:12,000 --> 00:46:15,319
Speaker 1: all this stuff when she was in high school. I

736
00:46:15,400 --> 00:46:19,160
Speaker 1: think it was her older brother said it was a prank,

737
00:46:19,680 --> 00:46:21,680
Speaker 1: like he just told her that and then if she

738
00:46:21,760 --> 00:46:25,640
Speaker 1: had some, she die And she wasn't actually allergic what

739
00:46:26,200 --> 00:46:33,160
Speaker 1: she was furious years years years gone. Oh you never

740
00:46:33,239 --> 00:46:36,160
Speaker 1: get that chocolate eating life back, not as a kid,

741
00:46:36,360 --> 00:46:42,040
Speaker 1: No way. I think about that often. Oh I'm going

742
00:46:42,080 --> 00:46:45,480
Speaker 1: to think about it often now, I mean mean but

743
00:46:45,800 --> 00:46:54,719
Speaker 1: successful frank siblings Man siblings. Okay, so that's chocolate. But yeah, um,

744
00:46:54,760 --> 00:46:57,520
Speaker 1: it was quite the undertaking and definitely a lot more

745
00:46:57,560 --> 00:47:05,080
Speaker 1: topics to explore there. But meantime, listener, man, we have

746
00:47:05,719 --> 00:47:10,680
Speaker 1: two raman emails. Bob senters this eating dry raman is

747
00:47:10,760 --> 00:47:14,719
Speaker 1: quite common here in China and other Asian countries. Growing up,

748
00:47:14,880 --> 00:47:18,520
Speaker 1: my son was always asking for Mama noodles. I don't know,

749
00:47:18,640 --> 00:47:21,040
Speaker 1: I think um or one of the other brands of

750
00:47:21,040 --> 00:47:25,480
Speaker 1: what is essentially just a bag of flavored dry ramen noodles. Also,

751
00:47:25,600 --> 00:47:28,359
Speaker 1: oftentimes before work when we were in Macau, I used

752
00:47:28,360 --> 00:47:30,279
Speaker 1: to stop at a little restaurant by my office that

753
00:47:30,360 --> 00:47:33,480
Speaker 1: served a lovely beef with black bean sauce served over

754
00:47:33,560 --> 00:47:37,080
Speaker 1: crispy noodles, which, of course it was only broken block

755
00:47:37,160 --> 00:47:39,920
Speaker 1: of dry ramen. So don't be embarrassed by munching on

756
00:47:40,000 --> 00:47:42,040
Speaker 1: a block of dry ramen, as over here no one

757
00:47:42,080 --> 00:47:47,000
Speaker 1: would even blink at the idea. H Rose also wrote

758
00:47:47,000 --> 00:47:52,280
Speaker 1: in I have visited the Mamafuku Ando Ramen Museum in Akeda, Osaka.

759
00:47:52,440 --> 00:47:54,920
Speaker 1: Aside from displays of instant raman through the years and

760
00:47:55,000 --> 00:47:58,239
Speaker 1: a historical replica of Mamafuku's workshop, the main focus of

761
00:47:58,280 --> 00:48:01,920
Speaker 1: the museum is composing your own cup noodle. That's right

762
00:48:02,040 --> 00:48:05,200
Speaker 1: for about three fifty U s Circu Two eight. Anyway,

763
00:48:05,520 --> 00:48:08,120
Speaker 1: you can choose up to three toppings and a soup base.

764
00:48:08,400 --> 00:48:11,239
Speaker 1: You can also decorate your cup noodle package. It's then

765
00:48:11,280 --> 00:48:14,200
Speaker 1: shrink wrapped and put into a strange bag that I

766
00:48:14,239 --> 00:48:17,840
Speaker 1: realized must have been developed for cup noodle space travel

767
00:48:18,000 --> 00:48:20,960
Speaker 1: after I listened to your podcast. If you are a

768
00:48:21,000 --> 00:48:22,880
Speaker 1: better planner than I was, you can also take a

769
00:48:22,920 --> 00:48:26,640
Speaker 1: class on making your own instant chicken ramen noodles. That

770
00:48:26,719 --> 00:48:32,200
Speaker 1: sounds worth visiting for sure. Yes, all my own ramen flavors.

771
00:48:32,200 --> 00:48:33,920
Speaker 1: I don't know what I would do I know. I

772
00:48:33,960 --> 00:48:37,200
Speaker 1: think the indecision might overwhelming. Yeah. I can't even go

773
00:48:37,239 --> 00:48:40,600
Speaker 1: into frozen yogurt places. It's a lot. Yeah, we got

774
00:48:40,680 --> 00:48:44,520
Speaker 1: in trouble. You got into a little bit more trouble

775
00:48:44,520 --> 00:48:46,400
Speaker 1: than I did, but you were going for the visuals,

776
00:48:46,400 --> 00:48:49,160
Speaker 1: so I was. There's a whole video. You can find

777
00:48:49,160 --> 00:48:53,399
Speaker 1: it online. Yeah, it's it's in our yogurt video. Um.

778
00:48:53,400 --> 00:48:55,560
Speaker 1: Thanks to both of them for writing in. If you

779
00:48:55,560 --> 00:48:57,359
Speaker 1: would like to write us that you can do so.

780
00:48:57,600 --> 00:49:00,880
Speaker 1: Our email is food Stuff at how stuff work dot com.

781
00:49:00,880 --> 00:49:03,239
Speaker 1: We're also on social media. You can find us on

782
00:49:03,280 --> 00:49:07,080
Speaker 1: Twitter and Facebook at food stuff HSW. We're also on

783
00:49:07,160 --> 00:49:10,120
Speaker 1: Instagram at food stuff. We hope to hear from you.

784
00:49:10,239 --> 00:49:13,560
Speaker 1: We are so grateful to our amazing producer, Dylan Fagan,

785
00:49:14,080 --> 00:49:16,359
Speaker 1: and we hope that lots more good things are coming

786
00:49:16,440 --> 00:49:19,080
Speaker 1: your way.