The chocolate

Have you ever wonder why eat chocolate is so good? Well, chocolate isn't like the otter candies, the chemistry that ocurres whith it in our body is special, it produces phenylethylamine then comes the serotonin, the substance that we produce in situations of happiness. When we get sad this hormone become low in our body, that's when the biggest part of us want to eat chocolate, because it increases the production of serotonin in our organism.
The desire to eat chocolate is different of the desire to eat any other candie because when the body discovers that there is chocolate in the organism, that gives energy and relax tensions it begins to ask for more and more, that's when we have an “chocoaddicted”. If you begin to eat chocolate every day, when you stop with that you're body will be asking for more and you won't stop eating chocolate.
An study in Amsterdam, Holland, in a congress of the Cardiology European Society concluded that chocolate is the newest friend of the heart, in the chocolate are substances called flavonoids that helps to combat the oxidation of the blood circulation. The cocoa is one of the richest fonts of flavonoids, so a good chocolate becomes one of the bests anti-oxidants.
Chocolate arose in South America, where the natives used cocoa seeds like currency. The Mayas and the Aztecs used the cocoa seeds to make a drink and they called it “Xocolatl”, they used to say that cocoa came from paradise because they used to believe that it would give power and magic for who drink it.
The first chocolate house was opened in London, 1657, by a french. Untill then, chocolate was a noble product, just for the elite. The chocolate has became popular after the Industrial Revolution, when it started to be procuced in serie. In 1765, John Hanan, introduces chocolate in EUA, there he opened a chocolate factory turning chocolate popular in the all world.
Nowadays chocolate is so popular that we have movies, books and novels about it, after all who has never dreamed about that giant chocolate waterfall from “Charlie and the chocolate factory”?

Bárbara Brumano.

Source:
http://www.gastronomiabrasil.com/Nutricao_e_Saude/Maio_2002.htm
http://www.planetaorganico.com.br/saudchoco.htm