A couple weeks ago, I attended a chocolate seminar.  That’s right - a whole seminar about chocolate!  Now that’s what I call mixing work with pleasure!

The seminar, “Foods That Love You Back; Enhancing Cardiovascular Health with the Foods that Love You Back” was held in Boston, MA and was sponsored by the Sports, Cardiovascular and Wellness Nutritionists, a practice group of the American Dietetic Association.

Speakers included Debra Miller, PhD, RD and Amy Greil, PhD, RD the Hershey Company, Jeffrey Blumberg, PhD, FACN, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging Tufts University and Monica Bearden, RD, NutCom LLC.

I learned some fun and interesting facts about chocolate and I also learned about some of the latest research on chocolate and its role in helping to reduce heart disease risk.  I’ll share some of the fun facts today and some of the research findings in my next entry.

Dr. Miller shared some interesting facts about chocolate, including:

• Chocolate begins as a plant.
• The cocoa pod is a fruit and is in the same family as blueberries, peaches and strawberries. 
• Cocoa or cacao beans are not really beans at all, but are actually seeds.
• Chocolate is derived from the cocoa seeds.
• In English, the word cocoa refers to both the plant and the powder.
• Cacao is more commonly used in the romance languages. 
• The term “% cacao” is the proportion of the product made from the cocoa bean.
• The United States consumes the most chocolate in the world.
• The scientific name, Theobromo cacao means food of the gods.
• Africa produces the most chocolate.
• There are 711 identified compounds in chocolate.
• Chocolate is a rich source of flavonoids, iron and fiber.
• Chocolate contains stearic acid, a saturated fatty acid that doesn’t appear to raise blood cholesterol levels.

To be continued…

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