Author: Enlightenment Angels

It never seemed realistic to make chocolate at home. A chocolate tart, sure, but chocolate made from cacao beans? Impossible. Yet every couple of months, that’s exactly what I do. I even capture this experience on my website, in all of it’s it’s disastrous yet delicious glory. As one of your guest bloggers for this month I hope you will enjoy these fun chocolate excursions. -Max Gandy

For me to make chocolate at home in South Korea, starting with 2kg of un-roasted cacao beans, takes about a month. Over the course of that month, in my free time–when I’m not teaching English, rock climbing, or finding the nearest dance floor–I inspect, sort, roast, break, winnow, and grind those beans into a paste. These brown almond-shaped seeds were grown in football-shaped pods, harvested from large tropical trees grown around the equator, and then collected, fermented and dried before being shipped…

Is chocolate actually healthy? The buzz around chocolate these days is around flavonoids and trace minerals, some of the molecules that make cacao a so-called “super food.” But do you know what those things are, and more importantly, why they matter?

5 Reasons to Eat More Quality Chocolate

Chocolate is good for us because it makes us happy on a basic, chemical level. Studies have proven this time & time again, and no, a Cadbury bar that’s 50% sugar doesn’t count. But a positive brain response is not the only reason to grab a quality chocolate bar for your post-meal bliss.

1. Small amounts of quality chocolate fight the aging process.
2. The fat in cacao is good for you, in moderation.
3. When chosen discerningly, chocolate raises people out of poverty.
4. Cacao trees help to maintain biodiversity on plantations.
5. Sustainable chocolate teaches you about other cultures.

Chocolate on a Chemical Level

Understanding chocolate…