Speaker 1: Guess what will?
Speaker 2: What's that mango?
Speaker 1: So? You know I love spicy food, right, and I
Speaker 1: love chocolate, but I don't really love this trend of
Speaker 1: spicy and chocolate.
Speaker 2: I am one hundred percent with you on this because
Speaker 2: I love spicy food and I love chocolate too, but
Speaker 2: I don't want any chili powder like in my hot
Speaker 2: chocolate or chocolate or any of that stuff.
Speaker 1: I know, why why are people always mixing those flavors?
Speaker 1: But I was looking into it and I found possibly
Speaker 1: the worst example of super spicy chocolate.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, there's a.
Speaker 1: Company that spared up in twenty sixteen called pepper bomb
Speaker 1: your mom.
Speaker 2: Like an insult?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it was I guess a joke that
Speaker 1: you could play on people where you'd buy a chocolate
Speaker 1: coated Carolina Reaper for nine to ninety nine and then
Speaker 1: send it to a loved one, or I guess the opposite.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, that is not something you want
Speaker 2: to send to a loved one.
Speaker 1: I know, Carolina reapers are so spicy.
Speaker 2: Actually, we've talked about these before. Aren't they even spicier
Speaker 2: than like ghost peppers? Yeah?
Speaker 1: They are, so I'm not sure if it's like the
Speaker 1: threat of lawsuits that close this business, or the fact
Speaker 1: that too many moms complained about it. But uh, pepperbomb,
Speaker 1: your mom sadly doesn't send out pepper bombs anymore. Sadly,
Speaker 1: I do want to get into the more tempting part
Speaker 1: of that recipe, which is the chocolate, why humans are
Speaker 1: so obsessed with it, whether it's really as healthy as
Speaker 1: all these reports would have us believe, and why doesn't
Speaker 1: taste more like tropical custard the way the beans do.
Speaker 3: Let's dig in.
Speaker 2: Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Speaker 2: Will Pearson, and as always I'm joined by my good
Speaker 2: friend mang show Ticketer. And on the other side of
Speaker 2: the soundproof glass munching his way through a Whitman sampler,
Speaker 2: that's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. Actually, by the way,
Speaker 2: that sampler looks like it's meant for more than one person,
Speaker 2: wouldn't you say?
Speaker 3: Mango?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, definitely, it's gotta be.
Speaker 2: Like thirty forty ounces chocolate sitting there.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 1: I actually tried to grab a piece earlier and Tristan
Speaker 1: slapped my hand away. Apparently he's busy branking all the
Speaker 1: different chocolates for his blog.
Speaker 2: Oh really his blog. Well that's at least that's something
Speaker 2: to look forward too, so I'll leave it be there.
Speaker 1: So you know what's funny is right before a hurricane Sandy,
Speaker 1: the night before the storm hit, like Lizzie sent me
Speaker 1: to a convenience store to get some last minute supplies,
Speaker 1: and we were pretty stocked up, but just in case,
Speaker 1: I went to pick up some like extra toilet paper
Speaker 1: and water and I think batteries. But the weather was bad,
Speaker 1: so like there were only two other guys in the
Speaker 1: store in line, and the first guy had the shopping
Speaker 1: cart filled with beer and condom, that's all. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: then I was there with like tpee and water in
Speaker 1: my hands, and and then this other guy had this
Speaker 1: shopping cart that was just filled with chocolate, just like
Speaker 1: bags and bags of candy. And I remember like glancing
Speaker 1: around and like being a little confused and thinking, well,
Speaker 1: we all have different definitions of being prepared.
Speaker 2: Like everybody was ready for very different nights. That's pretty great,
Speaker 2: all right. Well, I know we're going to get into
Speaker 2: the ancient history of chocolate, but it is kind of
Speaker 2: amazing that chocolate is the world's favorite candy. In fact,
Speaker 2: chocolate based candies far out sell fruit based candies in
Speaker 2: almost every country on the planet. Now, Denmark's love of
Speaker 2: harribogummies makes it one of the few exceptions to the
Speaker 2: rule in and I have to respect that they're pretty good.
Speaker 2: But this year alone, nearly eight million tons of chocolate
Speaker 2: is expected to be sold and consumed worldwide. Now that
Speaker 2: amounts to over one hundred billion dollars in revenue for
Speaker 2: one year.
Speaker 1: That's crazy. So how much of that as thanks to
Speaker 1: like American chocoholics.
Speaker 2: Actually not as much as you might think. So even
Speaker 2: though the average American eats about ten pounds of chocolate
Speaker 2: every year, we actually only ranked twentieth in terms of
Speaker 2: national chocolate consumption. And that's according to data released by
Speaker 2: euro Monitor. You know euro Monitor, Yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Get their newsletter.
Speaker 1: So we consume our own body weight and chocolate every
Speaker 1: ten years or so, and that's still only good enough
Speaker 1: for twentieth place. Yep, that's really confusing. How much chocolate
Speaker 1: are these other countries eating.
Speaker 2: Well, it's probably no surprise that Switzerland ranks number one,
Speaker 2: and each person there consumes on average about twenty pounds
Speaker 2: of chocolate every year, and so that's twice as much
Speaker 2: as the average American, and then Germany and Austria are
Speaker 2: tied for second. They have about I don't know, say
Speaker 2: seventeen to eighteen pounds per year. England and Ireland come
Speaker 2: in right after those. And then you go to the
Speaker 2: other end of the spectrum, and these are places where
Speaker 2: chocolate really doesn't dominate the sweet market, and China is
Speaker 2: an example of that. So the average Chinese citizen eats
Speaker 2: less than half a pound of chocolate a year, So
Speaker 2: that means people in Switzerland eat forty times as much
Speaker 2: chocolate as those in China. That's amazing.
Speaker 1: So this is completely off topic, but I can't stop
Speaker 1: thinking about it. Did you realize that cacao beans are
Speaker 1: related to okra and actually to durian as well. That's
Speaker 1: super smelly fruit, Like they're all from the same family.
Speaker 1: And I kind of want to tell my kids, like,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry I couldn't pick you up any chocolate
Speaker 1: from the store, but I got its cousin a bag
Speaker 1: of okra for you. But you were talking about chocolate consumption,
Speaker 1: where do the actual cacau producing countries fall on that list?
Speaker 2: Actually, just to go back to that, that would mean
Speaker 2: that chocolate is technically a vegetable then, right, Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2: All right, So the actual cacaw producing countries, Africa and
Speaker 2: South American countries account for the vast majority of the
Speaker 2: world's cacao production, and that's the type of seed pod
Speaker 2: that's used to make chocolate. But despite being the first
Speaker 2: and most crucial link in the chocolate supply chain, these
Speaker 2: countries actually don't consume very much chocolate at all. In fact,
Speaker 2: the highest chocolate consumption rate in all of South America
Speaker 2: is actually in Chili, and the average person there eats
Speaker 2: less than four pounds of chocolate per year, and the
Speaker 2: numbers there are even lower in Africa, so the entire
Speaker 2: continent consumes fewer than four percent of all the chocolate
Speaker 2: sold worldwide.
Speaker 1: Wow. And so I'm guessing the low consumption rate in
Speaker 1: these countries isn't due to like cultural preferences like it
Speaker 1: is in China, right, I mean, ancient civilizations in South
Speaker 1: America are pretty much invented chocolate, So it's not like
Speaker 1: the people there don't have.
Speaker 2: A taste for it. Yeah, that's that's really not what
Speaker 2: it is. I mean, it comes down to the low
Speaker 2: average income of several of these countries, And what do
Speaker 2: you think about it? If you're living on a few
Speaker 2: dollars or even less than a dollar a day, then
Speaker 2: it just doesn't make sense in the budget to spend
Speaker 2: on a luxury item like chocolate. Sure.
Speaker 1: So, I actually saw this report from Oxfam about the
Speaker 1: economics of the chocolate trade and how skewed it is,
Speaker 1: especially for Cocow farmers.
Speaker 2: And apparently if you divide up the cost.
Speaker 1: Of producing a chocolate bar from start to finish, the
Speaker 1: farmer who cultivated the rock Cocow only gets about three percent. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: about forty three percent of the price we pay for
Speaker 1: a chocolate bar is profit for the retailer.
Speaker 2: Wow. All right, So so three percent of the people
Speaker 2: who actually grow it and harvest it and you know,
Speaker 2: kind of provide that main ingredient for chocolate, and then
Speaker 2: forty three percent to those who sell the final product.
Speaker 2: Is that what you're saying? Wow, that does seem pretty skewed.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, I actually remember this video that made the
Speaker 1: rounds a few years ago where this reporter for this
Speaker 1: international news site visits some Cocow farmers on the Ivory Coast,
Speaker 1: and the Ivory Coast is the world's largest producer of
Speaker 1: coco beans. It turns out roughly, I want to say,
Speaker 1: like one point five million tons of it every year.
Speaker 1: But processed chocolate isn't really available, so when you do
Speaker 1: find it, it's really exorbitant. Like I think a bar
Speaker 1: costs about a third of what the average worker makes
Speaker 1: in a single day. Wow, which means that many farmers
Speaker 1: who cultivate cocao have actually never tasted the final product.
Speaker 2: I mean it kind of makes you want to go
Speaker 2: there and give them a taste of this stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so the video right, like this reporter gives a
Speaker 1: chocolate bar to a local farmer named Alphons, and he
Speaker 1: takes his first bite and you see his face just
Speaker 1: light up. He's like, I didn't know cacao was so yummy.
Speaker 1: And then he and the reporter hop on a motorbike
Speaker 1: to share the chocolate with other farmers, and when he
Speaker 1: passes the chocolate bar around, Alphons tells the other farmers,
Speaker 1: this is why white people are so healthy.
Speaker 2: Wow. Well, I know there's more we wanted to cover
Speaker 2: about cacao production and some of the other challenges that
Speaker 2: it involves, But since you brought up these health benefits
Speaker 2: of chocolate, I do think we should take a few
Speaker 2: minutes to do I don't know, some kind of a
Speaker 2: true false breakdown of what there it actually is good
Speaker 2: for your health.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, chocolate's one of those things like red wine,
Speaker 1: that you always hear about has all these surprising health benefits,
Speaker 1: but then you never get good sense of how much
Speaker 1: of that is backed by science and how much is
Speaker 1: just wishful thinking by people who really want to eat
Speaker 1: a lot of chocolate. I mean, like, I feel like
Speaker 1: I usually hear that dark chocolate is healthier because it
Speaker 1: has less sugar and more caca than milk chocolate, and
Speaker 1: you know, that makes a lot of sense, but at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, it's still just a comparison
Speaker 1: between two kinds of chocolate, so you're still kind of
Speaker 1: left wondering.
Speaker 2: Is chocolate itself healthy. Well, I'm glad you mentioned that
Speaker 2: distinction between dark and milk chocolate, because that difference in
Speaker 2: sugar and cacaws is really where these claims about chocolate's
Speaker 2: health benefits kind of live or die. And that's because
Speaker 2: cacao products contain a high amount of plant derived flavonols.
Speaker 1: So I think you should explain what flavanols are.
Speaker 2: It's just a word I made up, just sound good
Speaker 2: of it. Now for real that they're actually the biological
Speaker 2: compounds that occur in some foods. It's not not just chocolate,
Speaker 2: but unprocessed cacao is an example of that. And since
Speaker 2: flavonol's possess you know, antioxidant and blood vessel relaxing and
Speaker 2: these anti inflammatory qualities, they're they're often associated with markers
Speaker 2: of good health like you know, balance cholesterol or blood
Speaker 2: pressure or various other measures like this.
Speaker 1: So all those reports about how eating chocolate promotes heart health,
Speaker 1: that's basically because of the flavonols.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's where that comes from. But again, the blanket
Speaker 2: statement that chocolate is good for your health is a
Speaker 2: little misleading, you know. But because of his higher flavon
Speaker 2: all count cacow has a much better case for being
Speaker 2: healthy than chocolate does, I guess. But you know, even then,
Speaker 2: it's not like a cow is the only source of
Speaker 2: plant derived flavonols or even the best one really. In fact,
Speaker 2: you can usually find more flavonols in tea or grape
Speaker 2: juice or wine, and you know, several other fruits than
Speaker 2: you would and say cacal say cocw.
Speaker 1: Have you seen the Brooklyn nine nine where that guy
Speaker 1: Terry starts eating CaCO nibs now and because there's so
Speaker 1: much healthier for you than chocolate, And then he keeps
Speaker 1: heatium keeps he um, and suddenly he's like floated by
Speaker 1: the middle from the cacw. Okay, So there may be
Speaker 1: some indirect health benefits for eating chocolate, but you'd basically
Speaker 1: get the same or better results from other foods.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, And in most cases the results probably would
Speaker 2: be better with tea or berries than it would with chocolate.
Speaker 2: And that's largely because the heating process involved in standard
Speaker 2: chocolate manufacturing it actually burns away much of the flavonol
Speaker 2: concentration that you would find in those fresh cacao seeds.
Speaker 2: So you know, if you want to eat the healthiest
Speaker 2: chocolate that you can find, you should go for the
Speaker 2: dark chocolate with at least seventy or eighty percent cacal,
Speaker 2: and the flavanol concentration will be much higher than in
Speaker 2: any milk chocolate bar, which contains about fifteen percent cacao
Speaker 2: or less, but twenty to twenty five percent fat and
Speaker 2: forty to fifty percent sugar.
Speaker 1: Well, I usually prefer the bitter taste of dark chocolate
Speaker 1: to like the overly sweet taste of milk chocolate. But
Speaker 1: I'm kind of surprised there isn't more of a middle ground,
Speaker 1: like something that melts in your mouth like milk chocolate does,
Speaker 1: but also tastes less sugary.
Speaker 2: Well, I have to say, as a fan of milk chocolate,
Speaker 2: all of this kind of disappointing to me. But I
Speaker 2: do have good news for you, though, Mango, because researchers
Speaker 2: out of Temple University in Philly have actually found a
Speaker 2: new way to cut the fat content from chocolate by
Speaker 2: using nothing other than electricity, Like.
Speaker 1: They shock the fat away with one of those crazy
Speaker 1: exercise belts.
Speaker 2: I kind of wish that that was what they were doing,
Speaker 2: but now it's not not exactly that. So you do
Speaker 2: remember Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory and they're walking
Speaker 2: alongside the chocolate river and they're all those industrial pipes
Speaker 2: sucking up the chocolate.
Speaker 1: Right, Definitely, Augustus Gloop falls in.
Speaker 2: It's pretty funny. You like that movie, right, Yeah? I
Speaker 2: loved it, man, It's such a great movie. Well, it's
Speaker 2: actually there's something we can learn from that because the
Speaker 2: chocolate makers really are dependent on this pipe system to
Speaker 2: move liquid chocolate from one stage of production to the next.
Speaker 2: And the problem is that the thicker and more viscous
Speaker 2: a liquid is, the higher the chance it'll clog up
Speaker 2: the pipes a la Augustus gloop. And since cutting the
Speaker 2: fat content results in a denser and less smooth chocolate,
Speaker 2: producing low fat chocolate typically leads to a lot of blockages.
Speaker 1: So explain how electricity helps with that.
Speaker 2: Well, there's this phenomenon called electroreology, and it's basically when
Speaker 2: an electric field is used to turn a semi solid
Speaker 2: like jello into a liquid state or vice versa. So
Speaker 2: in the case of chocolate, the field from the electrified
Speaker 2: pipes causes its chunky CaCO particles and milk solids to
Speaker 2: really to line up in these chains and this makes
Speaker 2: the chocolate flow through the pipes much more easily. So
Speaker 2: not only will the new process lead to fewer clogs,
Speaker 2: it'll actually allow chocolate tears to use ten to twenty
Speaker 2: percent less butter per batch. And the best part is that,
Speaker 2: according to the authors of the study, the resulting chocolate
Speaker 2: delivers a stronger cacal flavor and significantly less.
Speaker 1: Fat, which sounds like a dream come true.
Speaker 2: Not to me, to be honest with you, I kind
Speaker 2: of want the more butter.
Speaker 1: But you know, there are a few health benefits to
Speaker 1: chocolate that go beyond the physicals. So, for one thing,
Speaker 1: chocolate contains caffeine, which obviously has a stimulating effect on
Speaker 1: the brain, but there are also these other feel good
Speaker 1: chemicals in there too. There's phenol ethylemium, which is a
Speaker 1: stimulant that raises the endorphin level in the brain. And
Speaker 1: there's also something called nandimide, which is similar to one
Speaker 1: of the active chemicals in marijuana.
Speaker 2: All right, So between its caffeine and those other feel
Speaker 2: good chemicals you mentioned, chocolate is clearly a mood enhancer,
Speaker 2: and this is real. There's even a study from Oxford
Speaker 2: that found that even just looking at a picture of
Speaker 2: chocolate was enough to trigger cravings and mood boost in
Speaker 2: some chocolate fiends.
Speaker 1: And don't forget, eating chocolate is also a surefire way
Speaker 1: to restore a little happiness after about with the dementia,
Speaker 1: which is you know, at least the case in Harry Potter, I.
Speaker 2: Thought you might figure out a way to put in
Speaker 2: a Harry Potter reference. That's a really helpful tip, though
Speaker 2: chocolate frogs. Well. Now that we've covered the health benefits
Speaker 2: of chocolate, both real and imaginary, I do feel like
Speaker 2: we should take a closer look at how humans became
Speaker 2: obsessed with the sweet stuff in the first place.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, But before we dive in, let's take a quick break.
Speaker 2: You're listening to part Time Genius and we're talking about
Speaker 2: the origins of mankind's love affair with chocolate. All right, Mengo,
Speaker 2: So I know you did some digging into the early
Speaker 2: years of chocolate. So do you want to walk us
Speaker 2: through what you found in the process.
Speaker 1: Sure, So the best place to start is with the
Speaker 1: cacao tree and its beans. And for anyone who's wondering,
Speaker 1: cacao and cocoa are the same thing. You can use
Speaker 1: the terms interchangeably because they both refer to the same
Speaker 1: exact bean. But even though Africa is now the world's
Speaker 1: largest cocoa producer, the trees aren't native to the region.
Speaker 1: They were actually brought over as a cash crop to
Speaker 1: aid the struggling region. And the true starting point of
Speaker 1: chocolate's long history is in Mexico, Central and South America.
Speaker 1: And that's where the equatorial climate provide the best place
Speaker 1: for the native cacao tree to thrive.
Speaker 2: Or is it just another quick note on the terminology here.
Speaker 2: So the cacao beans that these trees produce, they're really
Speaker 2: seeds though, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: They're not actually beans in the same way that like
Speaker 1: coconut milk is in milk, So we're just gonna go
Speaker 1: with it. Yeah, But the trees produce these big yellowish
Speaker 1: seed pods that kind of look like nerf footballs, and
Speaker 1: each pod contains about forty beans, which are what's actually
Speaker 1: used to make chocolate. So once you crack open the
Speaker 1: pods they husk, the beans are released, along with this sweet,
Speaker 1: sticky pulp that supposedly tastes something between like a cross
Speaker 1: of lemonade and apple custard.
Speaker 2: Actually sounds pretty good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But the beans and the pulp are left to
Speaker 1: ferment for a few days before being dried and roasted,
Speaker 1: and from there the cocoa beans can be ground up
Speaker 1: and then made into.
Speaker 2: A chocolate beverage. All right, So if that's what was
Speaker 2: done first, who were the very first people to drink chocolate?
Speaker 1: So most of the evidence points to the ancient Olemecs.
Speaker 1: They were actually the earliest known civilization to appear in Mexico,
Speaker 1: and archaeologists have found pieces of olemeck pots and vessels
Speaker 1: from around fifteen hundred BCE that contain traces of theobromine.
Speaker 1: This is a stimulant found in chocolate, and in fact,
Speaker 1: the Latin name for the cacao tree is theobromine cacao,
Speaker 1: which translates to chocolate food of the gods, which actually
Speaker 1: ends up being a pretty fitting names since it's believed
Speaker 1: that the Omes use the ground beans to make a
Speaker 1: special drink for religious ceremonies.
Speaker 2: It's always funny to think about the first people to
Speaker 2: discover something like chocolate, like, oh my god, this tastes
Speaker 2: so good. I gotta go tell everybody about this thing
Speaker 2: that I don't have a name for. But why is
Speaker 2: there uncertaint about who invented drinking chocolate? I mean, from
Speaker 2: what you've said, it sounds like the Olemes kind of
Speaker 2: have this wrapped up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But pottery with traces of cacao have been found
Speaker 1: in southern Ecuador as well, so those are believed to
Speaker 1: date back at least fifty five hundred years. So the
Speaker 1: Shuar Indians who lived in the region also have a
Speaker 1: potential claim to this chocolate drinking. The truth is there's
Speaker 1: tinted pottery in a lot of places, and that leaves
Speaker 1: a lot of room for interpretation, And since the Omes
Speaker 1: don't actually have any written history to go on, some
Speaker 1: of the theories surrounding them could be off. For instance,
Speaker 1: some researchers think that the Olemes used only the tropical
Speaker 1: flavorcaw pulp to make the drink rather than the bitter beans.
Speaker 2: Well, I can't say I blame I mean, when you
Speaker 2: say it tasted like what did you say, apple custard,
Speaker 2: lemonade or something like that, that sounds a lot better
Speaker 2: than like bitter bean water something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but bitter bean water. The gods right, right, right.
Speaker 1: But regardless of who came up with the idea, first,
Speaker 1: we do know for certain that the Mayans ran with it,
Speaker 1: like their written history includes numerous mentions of chocolate based
Speaker 1: drink made from the cacao seeds, and because Mayans had
Speaker 1: yet to develop a good roasting technique to mellow the flavors,
Speaker 1: it was probably pretty bitter.
Speaker 2: So what was in it exactly was just ground beans
Speaker 2: and water or what.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Or sometimes seasonings would be outed, like vanilla or
Speaker 1: honey or chili pepper.
Speaker 2: So how did the Mayans think about chocolate? They did
Speaker 2: they consider it the food of the gods or were
Speaker 2: they a little more level headed about the way they
Speaker 2: approached it?
Speaker 1: No, I mean they were full on crazy for chocolate.
Speaker 1: They leave the drink as offerings to their gods, and
Speaker 1: there are also paintings recovered from the time that show
Speaker 1: cacao and mythological scenes. It was also kind of a
Speaker 1: way to settle important legal matters or even seal the
Speaker 1: deal on a marriage wow for example, like early records
Speaker 1: of Mayan marriages show that in some places a woman
Speaker 1: had to prepare a cacao drink to prove that you
Speaker 1: can get that thick, frothy consistency just right. I mean,
Speaker 1: it does kind of make sense, because could you ever
Speaker 1: see yourself loving somebody who can't properly froth a pot
Speaker 1: of chocolate.
Speaker 2: I don't even know what that means, but I can't
Speaker 2: imagine it.
Speaker 1: But caca wasn't actually restricted to just the loftier sides
Speaker 1: of life. There were ceremonies and celebrations that used it,
Speaker 1: and it was also an early form of currency.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so in the fifth century CE, the Aztecs used
Speaker 1: it to buy food and other goods. For example, you
Speaker 1: can actually get a whole turkey for about one hundred
Speaker 1: cacao beans.
Speaker 2: It feels like a pretty good deal. I don't know
Speaker 2: what the exchange rate is and coco beans, but I'd
Speaker 2: buy it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, what's amazing is that it bread some early
Speaker 1: counterfeiting schemes as well.
Speaker 2: Counterfeiting of beans, is that what you're talking about. How
Speaker 2: do you counterfeit a bean? You just like take a
Speaker 2: rock and paint it or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, if you want a turkey bad enough anything. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: researchers have actually found these counterfeit beans at multiple dig
Speaker 1: sites in both Mexico and Guatemala, and at first glances,
Speaker 1: they just looked like these incredibly well preserved cacao beans.
Speaker 1: But once they actually touched them, the researchers realized that
Speaker 1: they were just made of clay, which.
Speaker 2: Is pretty ridiculous. I mean, but if kakau was that valuable,
Speaker 2: I would have to think that it was a delicacy
Speaker 2: that was reserved for the super wealthy. I mean, if
Speaker 2: people were going through the trouble of making these phony
Speaker 2: clay beans. What was it really hard to come by
Speaker 2: them or what?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it seems like the Mayans had taken
Speaker 1: a really generous approach to cacao.
Speaker 3: In their day.
Speaker 1: They thought of it as food from the gods, as
Speaker 1: we mentioned, so they thought it was meant for everyone
Speaker 1: to eat. So Mayan families, even the ones who weren't
Speaker 1: well off, would prepare batches of their favorite drink ahead
Speaker 1: of time, and then they'd enjoy it at every meal.
Speaker 1: And the Aztecs, on the other hand, considered cacau to
Speaker 1: be this upper class luxury and almost a status symbol.
Speaker 2: And I mean that's partially because they were using it
Speaker 2: as money.
Speaker 1: Too, right, But as a result, the lower classes would
Speaker 1: really only get a taste of stuff at weddings or
Speaker 1: sometimes at community celebrations. But what is clear is that
Speaker 1: Aztec rulers really loved their cacau, and probably the most
Speaker 1: famous was Montezuma. He supposedly drank I think it's like
Speaker 1: gallons of hot chocolate every day.
Speaker 2: See gallons. I can't imagine drinking gallons of anything.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the Spanish explorer Cortez claimed to have witnessed
Speaker 1: Montezuma consuming more than fifty cups of chocolate in a
Speaker 1: single day. I should mention, though, that some researchers think
Speaker 1: Cortez was exaggerating.
Speaker 2: All right, So just as a reminder, we remember that
Speaker 2: Cortes was the conquista or who conquered the Aztec. So
Speaker 2: was he the first to bring chocolate back to Europe?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is fuzzy too, just like with the
Speaker 1: Olmex and the shoe are It kind of depends on
Speaker 1: who you ask. So some historians claim Christopher Columbus was
Speaker 1: responsible for it. I'll say it was Cortes who returned
Speaker 1: to Spain bearing cacao and also the chocolate making apparatus
Speaker 1: from Montezuma's court. And whether or not Cortez was the first,
Speaker 1: he was definitely obsessed with this concoction. So in a
Speaker 1: letter to King Carlos the First of Spain in fifteen nineteen,
Speaker 1: Cortez wrote, the divine drink which builds up resistance and
Speaker 1: fights fatigue. A cop of this precious drink permits a
Speaker 1: man to walk for a whole day without food.
Speaker 2: I mean he might have oversold it. Just the tad
Speaker 2: chumming chocolate is really good but all right, so it
Speaker 2: might have been Columbus, or it might have been Cortes,
Speaker 2: but either way, it sounds like Spain was definitely the
Speaker 2: first in Europe to experience chocolate though right, yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Mean that seems pretty clear. And there's even a third
Speaker 1: version of the story that attributes chocolate's European introduction to
Speaker 1: the Spanish, albeit to clergymen rather than conquistadors. So this
Speaker 1: is according to the True History of Chocolate by Sophie
Speaker 1: and Michael co and they say it was a Spanish
Speaker 1: friar who brought cacao beans as a gift. Apparently he
Speaker 1: did this while introducing minds to the core to Philip
Speaker 1: the Second. But no matter how chocolate made its way
Speaker 1: to Spain, it quickly caught on all over Europe, and
Speaker 1: of course European palates weren't accustomed to that bitter, spicy
Speaker 1: brew enjoyed by the Aztecs, so they started making their
Speaker 1: own version of hot chocolate with cane sugar and cinnamon
Speaker 1: and other common spices, and by the sixteen fifties, these
Speaker 1: super trendy chocolate houses popped up in London and Amsterdam
Speaker 1: and even a few other cities, and it wasn't long
Speaker 1: after that that chocolate actually made its way back across
Speaker 1: the Pond.
Speaker 2: To American colonies. Wait, did you say chocolate houses or
Speaker 2: these like coffee houses or what.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, they were kind of these posh establishments. But
Speaker 1: drinking chocolate actually predates both coffee and tea as a
Speaker 1: stimulant beverage in Europe. So it's actually more accurate to
Speaker 1: say that coffee houses are like chocolate houses rather than
Speaker 1: the other way around.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's still crazy to you that drinking chocolate
Speaker 2: was the norm for so long. Yeah, fairly.
Speaker 1: The eating chocolate that we used to really didn't come
Speaker 1: about until like the nineteenth century. That's when these British
Speaker 1: chocolate tears frying sons hit upon the idea of adding
Speaker 1: sugar and cocoa butter to make a paste that could
Speaker 1: be molded into the world's first chocolate bar.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, the addition of sugar and fat, whether
Speaker 2: it was cocoa butter or milk. I mean, that was
Speaker 2: definitely a turning point for chocolate, and I do want
Speaker 2: to talk a little bit about why that is exactly,
Speaker 2: But first let's take a quick break.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, so I feel like I might know the
Speaker 1: answer to this one already. But why do you think
Speaker 1: adding sugar and fat to chocolate is such a great idea?
Speaker 2: I mean, in terms of taste, I think you could
Speaker 2: pretty much ask anyone in the world why adding sugar
Speaker 2: and fat might be good. So I think it helps
Speaker 2: on the taste front, for sure. But sure the biggest
Speaker 2: boon that sugar in fat gave to chocolate was actually
Speaker 2: this added sensory quality, you know, being something that melts
Speaker 2: in your mouth. I think it's actually pretty important.
Speaker 1: And that's something that didn't happen until sugar and fat
Speaker 1: were added.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, So you know the old Eminem slogan
Speaker 2: about melts in your mouth, not in your hand. But
Speaker 2: we actually should be more impressed with what Eminem's pulled
Speaker 2: off with that, because, as it turns out, getting chocolate
Speaker 2: to melt where and when you want it is not
Speaker 2: at all an easy task.
Speaker 1: So why is that?
Speaker 2: Well, because cocoa butter contains fatty triglycerized and they can
Speaker 2: arrange themselves in six different ways, and each of those
Speaker 2: combinations results in its own unique melting point. But here's
Speaker 2: the cash to that, there's only one of those arrangements
Speaker 2: that actually has the proper melting point to melt in
Speaker 2: your mouth, but not outside it.
Speaker 1: So how do you get to the ideal melting point.
Speaker 2: Well, the trick is to nail that ratio between milk
Speaker 2: fat and cocoa. So, for example, you know, dark chocolate
Speaker 2: has this higher percentage of cocoa and proportion to milk fat,
Speaker 2: and that gives it a higher melting point. But milk chocolate,
Speaker 2: on the other end, has much less cocoa than it
Speaker 2: does milk fat, which that's why it'll melt in your
Speaker 2: hand if you don't eat it quickly enough, which is
Speaker 2: why I tend to just shovel it into my mouth.
Speaker 2: But the thing is, even for a talented chocolate tear,
Speaker 2: it's actually pretty difficult to get those fatty triglycerites to
Speaker 2: crystallize just the way you want them to, and so
Speaker 2: it takes a lot of patience, takes a lot of skill,
Speaker 2: you know, to perfectly control the chocolates temperature during this
Speaker 2: whole tempering process, you know, just so you don't throw
Speaker 2: your proportions out of whack in the process of doing this.
Speaker 1: You know, what's funny is that, I mean, I love
Speaker 1: that there's an art taking chocolate and how it melts.
Speaker 1: But I met this editor a long time ago, really
Speaker 1: good book editor, and I was asking him how he
Speaker 1: got into the business, and he said he really wanted
Speaker 1: to be a chocolate maker. But so he went to
Speaker 1: like this famous chocolate maker in town and Vermont or something,
Speaker 1: and he shook hands with a lady and she said,
Speaker 1: your hands are too warm. You'll never be good at this.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, crazy, And you walk across the street to
Speaker 1: a bookstore. And that's how I got.
Speaker 2: Into Yeah, like, you're not tall enough to be a quarterback, but.
Speaker 1: I mean I get why it's worth the effort, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, making this creamy piece of chocolate that melts
Speaker 1: away and coats your tongue. That's a fantastic feeling.
Speaker 2: It really is. In fact, I was reading about this
Speaker 2: study from a group called mind Lab, and they tried
Speaker 2: to determine just how important that melting sensation is in
Speaker 2: our enjoyment of chocolate. So the researchers gathered a bunch
Speaker 2: of volunteer couples in their twenties. They monitored their heart
Speaker 2: rates and brain activity while they first melted chocolate in
Speaker 2: their mouths, and then again while they were kissing each other.
Speaker 1: That's pretty great. So all these couples are just like
Speaker 1: standing around the lab eating chocolate and then making out
Speaker 1: while wearing heart markers and things strapped to their heads.
Speaker 2: I guess, and they were proud, probably paid to do
Speaker 2: this as well. I guess. Sounds like not a bad gig.
Speaker 2: But the crazy thing they discovered was that the melting
Speaker 2: chocolate caused a more intense reaction than the kissing did.
Speaker 2: And I mean, the kissing did cause the volunteer's heart
Speaker 2: to race, and I guess that's good for their relationships,
Speaker 2: but you know, the chocolate made the effect last four
Speaker 2: times longer. It actually more than double volunteers resting heart
Speaker 2: rates from about sixty beats per minute to one hundred
Speaker 2: and forty. And the same kind of thing happened in
Speaker 2: the brain as well. So once this chocolate started to melt,
Speaker 2: the pleasure centers in the brain lit up more strongly
Speaker 2: and for a longer period than they did during the kissing.
Speaker 1: That's pretty nuts, and it kind of makes me think
Speaker 1: of how it chocolate has his reputation as an aphrodisiac,
Speaker 1: and how it's so strongly associated with love Valentine's Day.
Speaker 1: It almost seems like that mouthfeel could be a big
Speaker 1: reason why.
Speaker 2: Oh, it definitely is. And I was reading up on
Speaker 2: this a little and it turns out that we actually
Speaker 2: have special touch receptors on our tongues and they respond
Speaker 2: to this change in texture of a melting piece of chocolate.
Speaker 2: So once our tongues detect this melt, we have these
Speaker 2: receptors that send the message to the brain and that
Speaker 2: stimulates these feelings of pleasure. And the smell of chocolate
Speaker 2: has a similar effect, right, Yeah, that's right. And cacal
Speaker 2: beans are roasted and fermented during chocolate production, and these
Speaker 2: processes cause chemical changes in the beans which ensure the
Speaker 2: chocolate has its own distinct aroma. There's actually over six
Speaker 2: hundred flavor compounds produced at all, and they include everything
Speaker 2: from overcooked cabbage to human sweat to rob be fat,
Speaker 2: this all making one.
Speaker 1: Hundred mouths water.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: And you know, of course, none of these compounds smell
Speaker 2: anything close to chocolate on their own, thankfully, but they're
Speaker 2: unmistakable when joined together. It's such a strange thing, But
Speaker 2: in fact, these studies have shown that even just smelling
Speaker 2: chocolate stimulates the emotional what you would call feel good
Speaker 2: centers of the brain.
Speaker 1: Well, I know we talked earlier about some of the
Speaker 1: mood altering chemicals that chocolate contains, but you're actually saying
Speaker 1: that your brain lights up from just the smell alone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the mood enhancing substances we mentioned are only
Speaker 2: found in trace somemounts in chocolate, so you're not really
Speaker 2: gonna feel much of an effect from them unless you
Speaker 2: eat way more chocolate than you probably should. But what's
Speaker 2: going on a smell is it's a little bit more psychological,
Speaker 2: and chocolate has this uniquely pleasurable smell and taste and
Speaker 2: texture to humans. So you know, if we detect any
Speaker 2: of those sensations, we actually just get excited because we
Speaker 2: know we're about to eat some chocolate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it kind of makes you wonder if the
Speaker 1: whole idea of chocolate as an afrodisiac is also just
Speaker 1: in our heads. Like, we live in a world where
Speaker 1: chocolate hearts are already symbols of affection and where chocolate
Speaker 1: has been viewed as decadend or indulgent for almost hundreds
Speaker 1: of years now, So whether or not chocolate spurs these
Speaker 1: romantic feelings, we've all kind of been conditioned to make
Speaker 1: these connections ourselves.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's right. And you know, for example,
Speaker 2: you mentioned Mona Zoomer earlier, and that story I always
Speaker 2: remember about him is that he supposedly downed a bunch
Speaker 2: of drinking chocolate just before visiting his hairm at night.
Speaker 2: And you know, along with this story spread this idea
Speaker 2: that a daily dose of chocolate could enhance virility. But
Speaker 2: you've got to remember, this is the guy who reportedly
Speaker 2: drank what did you say, fifty cups of chocolate every
Speaker 2: single day, So drink it before bed was probably just coincidence, right?
Speaker 2: Or have it right?
Speaker 1: So let me just recap things a little bit. Chocolate
Speaker 1: contains psychoactive chemicals, but not enough to have more than
Speaker 1: a slight effect on our senses. Its reputation as afrodijiak
Speaker 1: is way overflown and mostly due to sort of this
Speaker 1: widespread placebo effect. And while it does have a unique smell, taste,
Speaker 1: and texture, we don't really know why the majority of
Speaker 1: humans respond as strongly to these qualities as we do.
Speaker 1: So I guess I'm wondering, like where does that leave us?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: Is there an answer for why we love chocolate so much?
Speaker 1: Because somehow it tastes good isn't good enough?
Speaker 2: Well, I was reading this interesting BBC News article by
Speaker 2: a doctor's name is Michael Moseley, and so he's a
Speaker 2: TV journalist and he's worked on a bunch of different
Speaker 2: science programs, and there's one called The Secrets of Your
Speaker 2: Food and it sounds like a pretty interesting show. But
Speaker 2: his idea for the unique appeal of chocolate goes back
Speaker 2: to that all important addition of sugar and fat that
Speaker 2: we talked about earlier, namely, that chocolate contains a combination
Speaker 2: of sugar and fat that you rarely find in nature. Now, separately,
Speaker 2: we obviously know that there are plenty of fruits that
Speaker 2: contain natural sugars, and then you've got nuts and fish,
Speaker 2: which are chok full of fat. But both of these
Speaker 2: together is a pretty rare thing. And in fact, one
Speaker 2: of the few natural sources where you'll find high levels
Speaker 2: of both sugar and fat is in milk. But even then,
Speaker 2: chocolate generally has a fat to sugar ratio of about
Speaker 2: one to two, which is higher than almost any kinds
Speaker 2: of milk except for one, and that's human breast milk.
Speaker 1: Huh.
Speaker 2: So, doctor Moseley talks about this. He explains that human
Speaker 2: breast milk is particularly rich in natural sugars, mainly lactose.
Speaker 2: Roughly four percent of human breast milk is fat, while
Speaker 2: about eight percent is made up of sugars. Formula milk,
Speaker 2: which is fed to babies, contains a similar ratio of
Speaker 2: fats to sugars. This ratio one gram of fat to
Speaker 2: two grams of sugars. That's the same ratio of fats
Speaker 2: to sugars that you find in milk, chocolate, and of
Speaker 2: course in biscuits and doughnuts and ice cream. In fact,
Speaker 2: this particular ratio is reflected in many of the foods
Speaker 2: that we find hard to resist.
Speaker 1: So the reason we love chocolate is because they're reminds
Speaker 1: us of breast milk. I mean, that's more appropriate for
Speaker 1: Mother's Day, right.
Speaker 2: Well, that's the idea though, I mean that that humans
Speaker 2: have a preference for the particular fat to carbohydrate balance
Speaker 2: that we've been conditioned to like from the start of
Speaker 2: our lives. And Mosley describes this chocolate obsession as an
Speaker 2: effort to quote recapture the taste and sense of closeness
Speaker 2: we got from the first food we ever sampled.
Speaker 1: Well I definitely wasn't expecting that, but it does remind
Speaker 1: me of this chocolate quote I read from this Portuguese
Speaker 1: poet named Fernando Pesoa. So you know how metaphysics is
Speaker 1: the branch of philosophy that deals with questions and about
Speaker 1: really plowing existence and the first.
Speaker 2: Causes and all that.
Speaker 1: Right, So Pasoa said there's no metaphysics on Earth like chocolate,
Speaker 1: and he's right. So, I mean, there's so much history
Speaker 1: and lore and science wrapped up in chocolate that you
Speaker 1: can almost never really get your head around it or
Speaker 1: get to the beginning of it, and in the end,
Speaker 1: it's probably just best to eat it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I know Tristan agrees with that, because he's
Speaker 2: eaten like forty five more pieces of this stuff since
Speaker 2: the beginning of the episode. But all right, before we
Speaker 2: let him finish the rest of that box off, why
Speaker 2: don't we share a few more stories about chocolate in
Speaker 2: today's backt off? All right, Well, I'll kick us off here,
Speaker 2: so we know there's obviously brown chocolate and white chocolate,
Speaker 2: which we weren't allowed to talk about today even though
Speaker 2: I love because it's not technically chocolate. But the good
Speaker 2: news is there will now soon be pink chocolate. And
Speaker 2: this is because, as we may have talked about earlier,
Speaker 2: you know, cocoa beans are actually kind of pinkish or
Speaker 2: reddish in their natural state, and so it's taken about
Speaker 2: a decade or so for food scientists in Switzerland to
Speaker 2: figure this out. But soon we will actually have pink chocolate,
Speaker 2: which will maintain that fruity or flavor, be a little sweet.
Speaker 2: But I'm pretty eager to try some.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm excited about that. So I've got a different
Speaker 1: type of good news. If you actually want to increase
Speaker 1: your odds of winning a Nobel prize, you should eat
Speaker 1: more chocolate.
Speaker 2: So Tristan's in luck.
Speaker 1: He's gonna have so many Nobells by the end of
Speaker 1: this year. A few years ago, a survey was taken
Speaker 1: of twenty three Nobel laureates during the time of their
Speaker 1: prize winning work, and it found that forty three percent
Speaker 1: of those reported eating chocolate at least twice a week,
Speaker 1: and that was higher than the twenty five percent of
Speaker 1: people who were at a similar age and education level
Speaker 1: but who had not won a Nobel. Wow. So this
Speaker 1: really scientifically solid finding also came after a correlation that
Speaker 1: was found between national chocolate consumption and the rate of
Speaker 1: Nobel prizes. I mean, that seems like pretty solid science
Speaker 1: to me.
Speaker 2: What do you think? Yeah, I mean, let's just forget
Speaker 2: that whole correlation causation thing and just go with it.
Speaker 2: That's that's some good science there. That is pretty funny though,
Speaker 2: that forty three percent of those Nobel winners were eating chocolate.
Speaker 2: What did you say, twice a week? Okay, that's still
Speaker 2: that's still pretty big. All right. Well, how weird is
Speaker 2: it that Quaker Oats finance the production of Willy Wonka
Speaker 2: and the Chocolate Factory. Did you know about that? And
Speaker 2: that's actually why the name was changed from Charlie and
Speaker 2: the Chocolate Factory to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Speaker 2: for the movie, And that's because they wanted to push
Speaker 2: their new Wonka candies and specifically the Wonka Bar. Now, weirdly,
Speaker 2: they couldn't seem to get the formula for the bar
Speaker 2: just right, so they actually didn't even release a Wanka
Speaker 2: Bar for a few years after the film. But the
Speaker 2: film did help launch several other of their popular candies,
Speaker 2: and thankfully it's still a pretty great movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I think We've talked about this German chemist
Speaker 1: who made those fart pills that make your tooth smell
Speaker 1: like chocolate, right, But I don't know why chocolate is
Speaker 1: always the go to answer for this type of thing.
Speaker 1: But this is like that story on steroids. So in
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, Japan sewage companies used a chocolate oil to
Speaker 1: mass the scent of their sewage trucks, which I guess
Speaker 1: you know, you'd have your kids running to meet the
Speaker 1: chocolate truck and suddenly they.
Speaker 2: That seems like I would ruin the taste for chocolate.
Speaker 2: So they're smelling chocolate in the air and that's the sewage.
Speaker 1: Yeah it well, it covers up the sewage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, crazy. Wow, that's pretty interesting. All right. Well,
Speaker 2: my kids were asking not too long ago why dogs
Speaker 2: can't eat chocolate, and that's because chocolate contains this chemical
Speaker 2: that we actually talked about earlier, theobromine, which is a
Speaker 2: little bit like caffeine, and it's actually toxic to both
Speaker 2: dogs and cats. And so this is the main reason,
Speaker 2: and that's because their bodies aren't able to metabolize the
Speaker 2: chemical at the same rate that we can. So if
Speaker 2: they have a little too much chocolate. It just causes
Speaker 2: them to get sick or very sick. But if they
Speaker 2: have high doses of theobromine, it can actually have tragic
Speaker 2: results as we know.
Speaker 1: Man, well, I feel like we need to bring this
Speaker 1: back to a slightly happier note. So did you know
Speaker 1: that Ruth Wakefield, the inventor of the chocolate chip cookies,
Speaker 1: sold her cookie idea to Neslie Tolehouse and you know
Speaker 1: how she was compensated with a lifetime supply of chocolate.
Speaker 2: No way, Again, it's still so weird to me to
Speaker 2: think of somebody like as the inventor of the chocolate
Speaker 2: chip cookiels like that stuff that should have just always
Speaker 2: been there.
Speaker 1: Pray that in for so many turkeys.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I have to say that is a great
Speaker 2: fact and worthy of today's Fact Off Trophy. So congratulations, mana.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Thank you guys for listening. If we've forgotten any great
Speaker 2: chocolate facts, we would love to hear from you, guys,
Speaker 2: you can always email us part time genius at HowStuffWorks
Speaker 2: dot com or call us on our twenty four to
Speaker 2: seven fact hotline. That's one eight four four pt genius.
Speaker 2: We've gotten so many great comments on Facebook and Twitter,
Speaker 2: so you can always hit us up there. But thanks
Speaker 2: so much for listening. Thanks again for listening. Part Time
Speaker 2: Genius is a production of how stuff works and wouldn't
Speaker 2: be possible without several brilliant people who do the important
Speaker 2: things we couldn't even begin to understand.
Speaker 4: Tristan McNeil does the editing thing.
Speaker 2: Noel Brown made the theme song and does the mixy
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Speaker 4: Harry Rowland does the exact producer thing.
Speaker 2: Abe Lozier is our lead researcher, with support from the
Speaker 2: Research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams.
Speaker 4: If Jeff go gets the show to your ears, good.
Speaker 1: Job, Eves.
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