tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/cacao-41350/articlesCacao – The Conversation2023-04-05T13:53:51Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2030962023-04-05T13:53:51Z2023-04-05T13:53:51ZEaster bunnies, cacao beans and pollinating bugs: A basket of 6 essential reads about chocolate<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519391/original/file-20230404-14-reloqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=422%2C0%2C4914%2C3173&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Easter has its bunnies, but chocolate comes out for every holiday.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/chocolate-bunny-family-royalty-free-image/177875356">garytog/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.insider.com/surprising-easter-fun-facts-stats-2019-4#as-many-as-91-million-chocolate-bunnies-are-sold-in-the-us-for-easter-annually-8">Tens of millions of chocolate bunnies</a> get sold in the U.S. every Easter. Here are six articles about chocolate from The Conversation’s archive – great reading while you’re nibbling the ears off your own bunny (if you’re one of the <a href="https://www.insider.com/surprising-easter-fun-facts-stats-2019-4#as-many-as-78-of-americans-eat-the-ears-of-their-chocolate-bunny-first-11">three-quarters of Americans who start</a> at the top).</p>
<h2>1. Food scientist on cocoa chemistry</h2>
<p>Chocolate bunnies don’t grow on trees – but cacao pods do. It takes a lot of processing to get from the raw agricultural input to the finished output.</p>
<p>Food scientist <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=5iZjEckAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Sheryl Barringer</a> from The Ohio State University wrote about various chemical reactions that are part of the transformation of beans into chocolate. One is the Maillard reaction, the same thing that gives the browned bits on roasted meats or a bread’s golden crust their flavor. <a href="https://theconversation.com/chocolate-chemistry-a-food-scientist-explains-how-the-beloved-treat-gets-its-flavor-texture-and-tricky-reputation-as-an-ingredient-198222">Barringer also explains that weird white stuff</a> – known as bloom – that might appear on your Easter chocolates if they hang around for a while. (Don’t worry, it’s still edible.)</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/chocolate-chemistry-a-food-scientist-explains-how-the-beloved-treat-gets-its-flavor-texture-and-tricky-reputation-as-an-ingredient-198222">Chocolate chemistry – a food scientist explains how the beloved treat gets its flavor, texture and tricky reputation as an ingredient</a>
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<h2>2. Chocolate is a fermented food</h2>
<p>Food science Ph.D. candidate <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=QjIM6yUAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Caitlin Clark</a> from Colorado State University focuses her research on the microbes responsible for much of chocolate’s flavor. As a fermented food, chocolate depends on yeast and bacteria to help turn a raw ingredient into the treat you can recognize.</p>
<p>Clark described how the microorganisms that occur naturally in a given geographical location can give high-end chocolates their “terroir” – “<a href="https://theconversation.com/chocolates-secret-ingredient-is-the-fermenting-microbes-that-make-it-taste-so-good-155552">the characteristic flair imparted by a place</a>” you might be more used to thinking about with regard to wine.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/chocolates-secret-ingredient-is-the-fermenting-microbes-that-make-it-taste-so-good-155552">Chocolate's secret ingredient is the fermenting microbes that make it taste so good</a>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519395/original/file-20230404-2112-yh79aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Cacao pods and flowers on branch tree close up" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519395/original/file-20230404-2112-yh79aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519395/original/file-20230404-2112-yh79aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519395/original/file-20230404-2112-yh79aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519395/original/file-20230404-2112-yh79aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519395/original/file-20230404-2112-yh79aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519395/original/file-20230404-2112-yh79aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519395/original/file-20230404-2112-yh79aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Tiny flies spread pollen from one cacao tree to another.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/cacao-pods-and-flower-on-branch-royalty-free-image/1165785501">dimarik/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span>
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<h2>3. Pollinators are important part of process</h2>
<p>Cacao growers rely on another tiny ally to pollinate their crop. Entomologist <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=qvmWZYwAAAAJ">DeWayne Shoemaker</a> from the University of Tennessee described the mini flies – particularly biting midges and gall midges – that get the job done. “Pollinators must pick up pollen from the male parts of a flower of one tree and deposit it on the female parts of a flower on another tree,” Shoemaker wrote.</p>
<p>But up to <a href="https://theconversation.com/tiny-cacao-flowers-and-fickle-midges-are-part-of-a-pollination-puzzle-that-limits-chocolate-production-154334">90% of cacao flowers don’t get pollinated</a> at all. People can hand-pollinate the little flowers, but it remains a mystery which other insects might do the job in the wild.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/tiny-cacao-flowers-and-fickle-midges-are-part-of-a-pollination-puzzle-that-limits-chocolate-production-154334">Tiny cacao flowers and fickle midges are part of a pollination puzzle that limits chocolate production</a>
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<h2>4. Child labor is chocolate’s bitter secret</h2>
<p>Harvesting and processing cacao is labor-intensive. To meet this need, some farmers turn to child labor. Cultural anthropologist <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=1ErMxzgAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Robert Ulin</a> from the Rochester Institute of Technology described how the global chocolate industry is tied to inequality via exploitative labor practices.</p>
<p>“The largest chocolate companies signed a protocol in 2001 that <a href="https://theconversation.com/some-chocolate-has-a-dark-side-to-it-child-labor-179271">condemned child labor and childhood slavery</a>,” Ulin wrote. But he noted that consumers may want more information to make sure their purchase power supports “fair labor practices in the chocolate sector.” </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/some-chocolate-has-a-dark-side-to-it-child-labor-179271">Some chocolate has a dark side to it – child labor</a>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519398/original/file-20230404-18-7hqbi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Dog and woman, both with Easter bunny ears on" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519398/original/file-20230404-18-7hqbi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519398/original/file-20230404-18-7hqbi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519398/original/file-20230404-18-7hqbi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519398/original/file-20230404-18-7hqbi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519398/original/file-20230404-18-7hqbi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519398/original/file-20230404-18-7hqbi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519398/original/file-20230404-18-7hqbi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Do not share your chocolates with your pooch.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/dog-and-woman-with-costume-and-easter-decorations-royalty-free-image/1359250422">F.J. Jimenez/Moment via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>5. Not safe for furry family members</h2>
<p>Eating a ton of chocolate is probably not a healthy choice for anyone. But even a little bit of chocolate can be deadly for dogs and cats. </p>
<p>In an article about all kinds of holiday foods that are unsafe for pets, veterinarian and researcher <a href="https://experts.okstate.edu/le.fanucchi">Leticia Fanucchi</a> from Oklahoma State University explained the chemicals in this human delicacy that can cause fatal “<a href="https://theconversation.com/holiday-foods-can-be-toxic-to-pets-a-veterinarian-explains-which-and-what-to-do-if-rover-or-kitty-eats-them-196453">chocolate intoxication</a>.” Don’t delay getting veterinary help if your pet does raid your Easter basket.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/holiday-foods-can-be-toxic-to-pets-a-veterinarian-explains-which-and-what-to-do-if-rover-or-kitty-eats-them-196453">Holiday foods can be toxic to pets – a veterinarian explains which, and what to do if Rover or Kitty eats them</a>
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<h2>6. An enslaved chocolatier in colonial America</h2>
<p>An enslaved cook named Caesar, born in 1732, was one of the first chocolatiers in the American colonies. Historical archaeologist <a href="https://berkeley.academia.edu/KelleyFantoDeetz">Kelley Fanto Deetz</a> from the University of California, Berkeley described how Caesar “would have had to <a href="https://theconversation.com/oppression-in-the-kitchen-delight-in-the-dining-room-the-story-of-caesar-an-enslaved-chef-and-chocolatier-in-colonial-virginia-151356">roast the cocoa beans on the open hearth</a>, shell them by hand, grind the nibs on a heated chocolate stone, and then scrape the raw cocoa, add milk or water, cinnamon, nutmeg or vanilla, and serve it piping hot.”</p>
<p>Cocoa was a hot commodity for Virginia’s white elite during this period, when it was a culinary component – along with pineapples, Madeira wine, port, champagne, coffee and sugar – of the Columbian Exchange.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/oppression-in-the-kitchen-delight-in-the-dining-room-the-story-of-caesar-an-enslaved-chef-and-chocolatier-in-colonial-virginia-151356">Oppression in the kitchen, delight in the dining room: The story of Caesar, an enslaved chef and chocolatier in Colonial Virginia</a>
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<p><em>Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203096/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Two food scientists, an entomologist, an anthropologist, a veterinarian and a historian walk into a bar (of chocolate) and tell bitter and sweet stories of this favorite treat.Maggie Villiger, Senior Science + Technology EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1982222023-02-06T15:32:17Z2023-02-06T15:32:17ZChocolate chemistry – a food scientist explains how the beloved treat gets its flavor, texture and tricky reputation as an ingredient<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506622/original/file-20230126-33474-ipuq4s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=260%2C164%2C5030%2C3794&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In what form do you eat your annual share of the approximately 5 million tons of cocoa produced worldwide?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/chocolate-chunks-frosting-with-beaters-and-cocoa-royalty-free-image/1209981740">Tracey Kusiewicz/Foodie Photography/Moment via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Whether it is enjoyed as creamy milk chocolate truffles, baked in a devilishly dark chocolate cake or even poured as hot cocoa, Americans on average consume almost <a href="https://www.statista.com/forecasts/1236087/per-capita-consumption-of-chocolate-in-united-states">20 pounds (9 kilograms) of chocolate</a> in a year. People have been enjoying chocolate for <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-history-of-chocolate-when-money-really-did-grow-on-trees-196173">at least 4,000 years</a>, starting with Mesoamericans who brewed a drink from the seeds of cacao trees. In the 16th and 17th centuries, both the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-history-of-chocolate-when-money-really-did-grow-on-trees-196173">trees and the beverage spread across the world</a>, and chocolate today is <a href="https://www.statista.com/forecasts/983554/global-chocolate-confectionery-market-size">a trillion-dollar global industry</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=5iZjEckAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">As a food scientist</a>, I’ve conducted research on the volatile molecules that make chocolate taste good. I also developed and taught a very popular college course on the science of chocolate. Here are the answers to some of the most frequent questions I hear about this unique and complex food.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506623/original/file-20230126-24317-g0khzq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="hands hold a split cacao pod, displaying the seeds inside" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506623/original/file-20230126-24317-g0khzq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506623/original/file-20230126-24317-g0khzq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506623/original/file-20230126-24317-g0khzq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506623/original/file-20230126-24317-g0khzq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506623/original/file-20230126-24317-g0khzq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506623/original/file-20230126-24317-g0khzq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506623/original/file-20230126-24317-g0khzq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">There’s a lot of processing that happens between cacao beans in a pod and the chocolate at your table.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/fresh-red-cocoa-fruits-royalty-free-image/1067662062?adppopup=true">Gustavo Ramirez/Moment via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>How does chocolate get its characteristic flavor?</h2>
<p>Chocolate starts out as a rather dull-tasting bean, packed into a pod that grows on a cacao tree. Developing the characteristic flavor of chocolate requires two key steps: fermentation and roasting.</p>
<p>Immediately after harvest, the beans are piled under leaves and <a href="https://theconversation.com/chocolates-secret-ingredient-is-the-fermenting-microbes-that-make-it-taste-so-good-155552">left to ferment for several days</a>. Bacteria create the chemicals, called precursors, needed for the next step: roasting.</p>
<p>The flavor you know as chocolate is formed during roasting by something chemists call the <a href="https://theconversation.com/kitchen-science-from-sizzling-brisket-to-fresh-baked-bread-the-chemical-reaction-that-makes-our-favourite-foods-taste-so-good-58577">Maillard reaction</a>. It requires two types of chemicals – sugar and protein – both of which are present in the fermented cacao beans. Roasting brings them together under high heat, which causes the sugar and protein to react and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1750-3841.2010.01984.x">form that wonderful aroma</a>.</p>
<p>Roasting is something of an art form. Different temperatures and times will produce different flavors. If you sample a few chocolate bars on the market, you will quickly realize that some companies roast at a much higher temperature than others. Lower temperatures maximize the floral and fruity notes, while higher temperatures create more caramel and coffee notes. Which is better is really a matter of personal preference.</p>
<p>Interestingly, the Maillard reaction is also what creates the flavor of freshly baked bread, <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-makes-smoky-charred-barbecue-taste-so-good-the-chemistry-of-cooking-over-an-open-flame-184206">roasted meat</a> and coffee. The similarity between chocolate and coffee may seem fairly obvious, but bread and meat? The reason those foods all smell so different is that the flavor chemicals that get formed depend on the exact types of sugar and protein. Bread and chocolate contain different types, so even if you roasted them in exactly the same manner, you wouldn’t get the same flavor. This specificity is part of the reason it’s so hard to make a good artificial chocolate flavor.</p>
<h2>How long can you store chocolate?</h2>
<p>Once the beans are roasted, that wonderful aroma has been created. The longer you wait to consume it, the more of the volatile compounds responsible for the smell evaporate and the less flavor is left for you to enjoy. Generally you have <a href="https://damecacao.com/how-to-store-chocolate/">about a year to eat milk chocolate</a> and two years for dark chocolate. It’s not a good idea to store it in the refrigerator, because it picks up moisture and odors from the other things in there, but you can store it tightly sealed in the freezer.</p>
<h2>What’s different about hot chocolate?</h2>
<p>To make powdered hot chocolate, the beans are soaked in alkali to increase their pH before roasting. Raising the pH to be more basic helps make the powdered cocoa more soluble in water. But when the beans are at a higher pH during roasting, it changes the Maillard reaction so that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1750-3841.2009.01455.x">different flavors are formed</a>.</p>
<p>The flavor of hot chocolate is described by experts as a smooth and mellow flavor with earthy, woodsy notes, while regular chocolate flavor is sharp, with an almost citrus fruit finish.</p>
<h2>What creates the texture of a chocolate bar?</h2>
<p>Historically, chocolate was consumed as a drink because the ground beans are very gritty – far from the smooth, creamy texture people can create today.</p>
<p>After removing the shells and grinding the beans, modern chocolate makers add additional cocoa butter. Cocoa butter is the fat that occurs in the cacao beans. But there isn’t enough fat naturally in the beans to make a smooth texture, so chocolate makers add extra.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506625/original/file-20230126-33788-3xo4uj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="millstones of an industrial machine smashing cocoa powder" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506625/original/file-20230126-33788-3xo4uj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506625/original/file-20230126-33788-3xo4uj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506625/original/file-20230126-33788-3xo4uj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506625/original/file-20230126-33788-3xo4uj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506625/original/file-20230126-33788-3xo4uj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506625/original/file-20230126-33788-3xo4uj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506625/original/file-20230126-33788-3xo4uj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Machines can pulverize the beans to a very fine texture.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/millstones-of-industrial-melanger-grind-cocoa-in-royalty-free-image/1182864674">Евгений Харитонов/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span>
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<p>Next the cacao beans and cocoa butter undergo <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/food-science/conching">a process called conching</a>. When the process was first invented, it took a team of horses a week walking in a circle, pulling a large grinding stone, to pulverize the particles small enough. Today machines can do this grinding and mixing in about eight hours. This process <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-4549.2008.00272.x">creates a smooth texture</a>, and also drives off some of the undesirable odors.</p>
<h2>Why is chocolate so difficult to cook with?</h2>
<p>The chocolate you buy in a store has been tempered. Tempering is a process of heating up the chocolate to just the right temperature during production, before letting it cool to a solid. This step is necessary because of the fat.</p>
<p>Cocoa butter’s fat can naturally exist in six different crystal forms when it is a solid. Five of these are unstable and want to convert into the most stable, sixth form. Unfortunately, that sixth form is white in appearance, gritty in texture and is commonly called “bloom.” If you see a chocolate bar with white spots on it, it has bloomed, which means the fat has rearranged itself into that sixth crystal form. It is still edible but doesn’t taste as good.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506626/original/file-20230126-35457-102fb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="lighter colored circular pattern of bloom on a brown chocolate surface" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506626/original/file-20230126-35457-102fb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506626/original/file-20230126-35457-102fb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506626/original/file-20230126-35457-102fb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506626/original/file-20230126-35457-102fb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506626/original/file-20230126-35457-102fb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506626/original/file-20230126-35457-102fb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506626/original/file-20230126-35457-102fb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Careful chocolate prep tries to hold off the most stable – but undesirable – version of the fat in cocoa butter, which is called bloom.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/bloomed-chocolate-royalty-free-image/92094613">nbehmans/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>You can’t prevent bloom from happening, but you can slow it down by heating and cooling the chocolate through a series of temperature cycles. This process causes all the fat to crystallize into the second-most stable form. It takes a long time for this form to rearrange itself into the white, gritty sixth form.</p>
<p>When you melt chocolate at home, you break the temper. The day after you’ve created your confection, <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-the-white-stuff-on-my-easter-chocolate-and-can-i-still-eat-it-181274">the chocolate usually blooms</a> with an unattractive gray or white surface.</p>
<h2>Is chocolate an aphrodisiac or antidepressant?</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/mondays-medical-myth-chocolate-is-an-aphrodisiac-4980">short answer is, sorry, no</a>. Eating chocolate may make you feel happier, but that’s because it tastes so good, not because it is chemically changing your brain.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198222/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sheryl Barringer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There’s a lot of interesting science behind the fermenting, roasting, grinding and melting that turns chocolate into the bars, bonbons and baked goods you know and love.Sheryl Barringer, Professor of Food Science and Technology, The Ohio State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1961732022-12-22T06:56:09Z2022-12-22T06:56:09ZThe history of chocolate: when money really did grow on trees<p>Advent calendars with hidden chocolatey treats, huge tins of Quality Street and steaming cups of hot chocolate festooned with whipped cream and marshmallows are all much-loved wintry staples at Christmastime. But how many of us stop to think about where chocolate actually comes from and how it made its way into our culinary culture?</p>
<p>The story of chocolate has a compelling, rich history that <a href="https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/news/eight-leading-academics-awarded-british-academy-global-professorships/">academics like me</a> are learning more about every day.</p>
<p>Chocolate is made by fermenting, drying, roasting and grinding the seeds of a small, tropical tree of the genus <em>Theobroma</em>. Most chocolate sold today is made from the species <a href="https://www.kew.org/plants/cacao-tree"><em>Theobroma cacao</em></a>, but Indigenous peoples in South America, Central America and Mexico make food, drink and medicine with many other <em>Theobroma</em> <a href="https://academic.oup.com/florida-scholarship-online/book/29084/chapter-abstract/241646819?redirectedFrom=fulltext">species</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A sepia tinted printed drawing of a Mesoamerican era man holding a" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501866/original/file-20221219-16-c4a51q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501866/original/file-20221219-16-c4a51q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1106&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501866/original/file-20221219-16-c4a51q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1106&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501866/original/file-20221219-16-c4a51q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1106&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501866/original/file-20221219-16-c4a51q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1390&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501866/original/file-20221219-16-c4a51q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1390&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501866/original/file-20221219-16-c4a51q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1390&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Indigenous Mesoamerican man with implements to prepare and serve chocolate.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Philippe Sylvestre Dufour / John Carter Brown Library, Brown University</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Cacao was domesticated at least 4,000 years ago, first in the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-018-0168-6">Amazon basin and then in Central America</a>. The oldest archaeological evidence of cacao, possibly as old as 3,500 BCE, comes from <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/6091/">Ecuador</a>. In Mexico and Central America, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/latin-american-antiquity/article/abs/spouted-vessels-and-cacao-use-among-the-preclassic-maya/25879EC543A324A82392DED1B0E43026">vessels with cacao residues</a> date to as early as 1,900 BCE.</p>
<p>Cacao is the name in many languages of Mesoamerica (Mexico and Central America) for both the tree, the seed and the preparations that come from it; people who use this word give a nod to that ancient, Indigenous past. Cacao is a convenient catch-all term, the way “bread” in English describes a baked food made of flour, water and yeast.</p>
<p>For thousands of years, Mesoamericans have used cacao for many purposes: as a <a href="http://www.mayacodices.org/frameDetail.asp?almNum=326&frameNum=1">ritual offering</a>, a medicine, and a key ingredient in both special occasion and everyday food and drink – each of which had different names. One of these special, local cacao concoctions was called “chocolat”.</p>
<h2>Colonialists and currency</h2>
<p>How did chocolate take off like wildfire when its birthplace has been long neglected? The most popular initial use of cacao in the 16th century, by colonists from Europe and Africa in Latin America, was as currency rather than something to eat or drink.</p>
<p>My research on <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278416520302300">cacao as money</a> shows its steady development in the crucial role of small coin, as one of several commodity monies in pre-Colombian Mesoamerica. The Rio Ceniza valley in what is now western El Salvador was an extraordinary producer, among only four high-volume farming centres that greatly expanded the cacao money supply in the 13th century.</p>
<p>Spanish colonists quickly made the convenient and reliable cacao money legal tender for all kinds of transactions. However, they were initially dubious about ingesting the substance, debating its health effects and flavour. The Rio Ceniza valley, known then by the Indigenous name Izalcos, became famous as the place where money grew on trees and newly arrived colonists could make a fortune. Their local, unique cacao drink was “chocolat”.</p>
<h2>Crossing the world</h2>
<p>Despite a hesitant start, chocolate had become hugely popular in Europe by the late 16th century. Among a host of new flavours from the Americas, chocolate was especially captivating. Most importantly, drinking chocolate became a way to socialise.</p>
<p>It also became increasingly associated with luxury and indulgence, to the point of sinfulness, as well as healthful properties that particularly enhanced beauty and fertility. By the 1600s, Europeans were using the word chocolate to describe cacao-flavoured sweets, drinks and sauces.</p>
<p>Chocolate soon began to change the way people did things. As Spanish literature scholar Carolyn Nadeau <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.3138/9781442624962/html">points out</a>: “Prior to chocolate, breakfast was not a communal event as lunch and dinner were.” As chocolate became increasingly popular in Spain, so too did breakfast. It was also fashionable as a mid-afternoon or late-night snack, taken with bread rolls or even fried bread – the ancestor of today’s breakfast-time <a href="https://lovefoodfeed.com/what-are-churros/">churros</a>.</p>
<p>By the 18th century, a variety of recipes using chocolate filled the pages of European cookbooks, demonstrating how important it had become at all levels of society. Far from its Indigenous Central American origins, enslaved Africans, labouring on new plantations in Latin America and later in west Africa, grew much of the cacao that fed the expanding global market. For makers and consumers, chocolate developed vivid connections to class, gender and <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/americas/2022/08/in-search-of-vanilla.html">race</a>. Chocolate became an evocative shorthand for blackness. </p>
<p>Steep inequalities have become entrenched ever more deeply with the globalisation of chocolate. For example, 75% of chocolate consumption takes place in Europe, the US and Canada, yet 100% of the world’s cocoa is produced by Black, Indigenous, Latin American and Asian people – areas that consume only 25% of the world’s finished chocolate, with Africans consuming the least at 4%.</p>
<p>It is largely produced by hand and is a source of livelihood for up to <a href="https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/ssi-global-market-report-cocoa.pdf">50m people</a> in mostly developing countries. The COVID-19 pandemic <a href="https://www.anthropology-news.org/articles/from-cocoa-farms-to-candy-chutes/">made things even worse</a>. Reduction in movement, limitations on gatherings, supply chain interruptions and poor access to healthcare hit producing communities hard.</p>
<p>Meanwhile large cocoa buyers and traders reduced or paused their cocoa purchasing for as long as two years to weather the storm of uncertain consumer demand throughout the pandemic.</p>
<h2>Inequality, fair trade and farmers</h2>
<p>Current trends have deep roots in chocolate’s past. Chocolate consumption continues to grow. Europeans are today’s <a href="https://www.cbi.eu/market-information/cocoa/trade-statistics">largest consumers of chocolate</a> and the UK is among the highest in Europe, with a per capita consumption of 8.1kg per year and the largest market for fair trade chocolate.</p>
<p>As the chocolate market grows, so too do problems of social inequality and ecological disruption. Carla Martin, founder and director of the <a href="https://www.chocolateinstitute.org/">Fine Cacao and Chocolate Institute</a>, and I have explained that a path towards economic, social and environmental sustainability will require a <a href="https://socio.hu/uploads/files/2015en_food/chocolate.pdf">range of significant investments</a>.</p>
<p>The University of Reading has already made vital efforts with the <a href="http://www.icgd.reading.ac.uk/index.php">Cocoa Germplasm Database</a> to help farmers identify and access cacao’s genetic diversity, and to understand how genetic profiles relate to greater crop resilience and productivity.</p>
<p>Innovative social enterprises such as <a href="https://cocoa360.org/">Cocoa360</a> are incubators for addressing the big challenges that cacao farmers face, and charting a more hopeful future for chocolate and those who produce it. Food for thought as you unwrap another Ferrero Rocher this Christmas.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196173/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kathryn Sampeck receives funding from The British Academy, the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the Social Science Research Council, the Institute for International Education Fulbright Program. </span></em></p>Most of us enjoy chocolate this time of year, but how many of us appreciate its historical roots and significance?Kathryn Sampeck, Global Professor in Historical Archaeology, University of ReadingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1746262022-01-13T13:28:57Z2022-01-13T13:28:57ZMesurer les travail des enfants: le cas des cacaoyères ivoiriennes<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440621/original/file-20220113-25-edvzh2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C0%2C923%2C694&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">La définition du travail des enfants dans les cacaoyères d'Afrique de l'Ouest est toujours contestée</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dr.Richard Asare/Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Les preuves du <a href="https://fortune.com/2020/10/19/chocolate-child-labor-west-africa-cocoa-farms/">travail des enfants dans les exploitations cacaoyères d'Afrique de l'Ouest</a> avaient été rendues publiques à la fin des années 1990, avec la parution d’articles de presse documentant l'existence d’activités dangereuses effectuées par des enfants dans les exploitations cacaoyères. Depuis lors pour mettre fin au travail des enfants, des pressions toujours plus fortes n'ont eu de cesse d'être exercées sur l'industrie du cacao, notamment par la société civile et plus récemmenr par les organismes de régulations américain et européen.</p>
<p>Afin de répondre à la demande des consommateurs pour une exploitation du cacao plus durable et conforme à l'éthique, ce secteur a commencé à utiliser des systèmes de certification à la fin des années 2000. Les labels de certification, tels que <a href="https://www.rainforest-alliance.org/business/certification/difference-between-rainforest-alliance-certified-fair-trade/">Rainforest Alliance et FairTrade</a>, visent, entre autres, à garantir un cacao produit sans recourir au travail des enfants. </p>
<p>Selon les estimations, entre <a href="https://www.voicenetwork.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/2020-Cocoa-Barometer.pdf">un tiers et la moitié</a> du cacao vendu dans le monde est actuellement certifié. </p>
<p>En septembre 2001, en ratifiant le <a href="https://cocoainitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Harkin_Engel_Protocol.pdf">Protocole Harkin-Engel</a>, l'industrie du cacao s'est engagée à réduire de 70% les formes de travail les plus dangereuses d'ici 2020. Pourtant, la Côte d'Ivoire, premier producteur mondial de cacao, est toujours confronté au travail des enfants dans ses plantations de cacao. </p>
<p>En effet, le nombre d'enfants de moins de 18 ans travaillant dans les plantations de cacao (certifiées ou non) a, en réalité, <a href="https://www.norc.org/PDFs/Cocoa%20Report/NORC%202020%20Cocoa%20Report_English.pdf">augmenté entre 2013 et 2019</a>, et tourne autour de 790 000. Il semble que <a href="https://www.norc.org/PDFs/Cocoa%20Report/NORC%202020%20Cocoa%20Report_English.pdf">97 %</a> d'entre eux effectuent certaines tâches les plus dangereuses, à savoir le défrichage, la récolte du cacao à la machette ou répendre les produits agrochimiques dans les plantations de cacao. </p>
<p>Dans mon nouveau <a href="http://bordeauxeconomicswp.u-bordeaux.fr/2021/2021-08.pdf">travail de recherche</a> axé sur les producteurs de cacao certifiés en Côte d'Ivoire, je soutiens que le nombre réel d'enfants travailleurs est probablement encore plus élevé, car les données sur le travail des enfants peuvent être biaisées. Les résultats indiquent également que la certification ne fonctionne pas comme prévu dans ce domaine.</p>
<h2>Le travail des enfants dans la filière cacao</h2>
<p>J'ai constaté que le taux de prévalence du travail des enfants est probablement sous-estimé dans les études menées tant par les chercheurs que par l'industrie du cacao, en raison d’une notion appelée <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2007-12463-007">« biais de désirabilité sociale »</a>. Cette notion fait référence aux gens qui sont réticents à fournir des réponses totalement sincères sur des sujets sensibles par crainte de conséquences négatives. </p>
<p>Dans le cas du travail des enfants dans les cacaoyères ivoiriennes, les agriculteurs certifiés peuvent mentir à ce sujet, les systèmes de certification auxquels ils ont souscrit interdisant toutes les formes de travail des enfants. De même, le travail dangereux est interdit par la législation nationale. </p>
<p>La crainte de répercussions juridiques, sociales ou économiques conduit sans doute les agriculteurs certifiés à sous-estimer le recours au travail des enfants. Ce qui rend plus difficile l'évaluation précise de l'ampleur du problème et l'adoption des politiques efficaces pour le combattre.</p>
<h2>Questions sensibles</h2>
<p>Mon <a href="http://bordeauxeconomicswp.u-bordeaux.fr/2021/2021-08.pdf">étude</a> s'est appuyée sur une méthode d'enquête de type <a href="https://dimewiki.worldbank.org/List_Experiments">expérience de liste</a>. Celle-ci permet de questionner les répondants sur des sujets sensibles d'une manière plus indirecte que les enquêtes standards. </p>
<p>Le taux de prévalence de l'utilisation du travail des enfants, calculé à l'aide de la méthode indirecte, est deux fois plus élevé que celui obtenu à partir des questions directes. Grâce aux expériences de liste, j’ai découvert qu’en fonction des activités concernées, 21 à 25 % des producteurs de cacao interrogés ont fait travailler des enfants au cours des 12 derniers mois. Cette différence semble indiquer qu'au moins la moitié des producteurs de cacao ivoiriens qui emploient des enfants dans leurs exploitations certifiées, ne sont pas prêts à l'admettre.</p>
<h2>Pourquoi dépendre des enfants</h2>
<p>Les principaux facteurs sont, entre autres, les défaillances des marchés du travail, le manque d'infrastructures scolaires et les difficultés à contrôler les cacaoculteurs certifiés utilisant des enfants, principalement en raison de l'éloignement des plantations.</p>
<p>La production de cacao requiert une part importante d’activités physiques, car de nombreuses tâches associées à la culture du cacao ne sont pas mécanisées. De plus, les prix du cacao en Côte d'Ivoire étant fixés de manière saisonnière, la seule façon pour les agriculteurs d’accroître leurs revenus est d’intensifier leur production, d’où une augmentation de la main d’œuvre. </p>
<p>Dans le même temps, la tendance veut que les cacaoyères ivoiriennes soient regroupées dans les communautés productrices de cacao. Cela signifie que la main-d'œuvre adulte locale est rare, car la plupart des adultes valides travaillent dans leurs propres plantations de cacao et ne cherchent pas de travail dans d'autres exploitations.</p>
<p>En raison de cette défaillance du marché du travail – il y a plus de besoins de main-d’œuvre là où elle n'est pas disponible - davantage de cacaoculteurs dépendent du travail des enfants. Ce phénomène est encore plus marqué lorsque les exploitations cacaoyères sont situées dans des communautés éloignées, peu accessibles par la route. Le recours au travail des enfants pour les producteurs de cacao est alors en partie dû à la pénurie de main-d'œuvre adulte. Cette constatation est encore confirmée par le fait que la présence supplémentaire d'un adulte dans un ménage de cultivateurs de cacao réduit d’au moins 4 % la probabilité de dépendre du travail des enfants.</p>
<p>J'ai en outre constaté que le taux de prévalence du travail des enfants est plus élevé dans les exploitations agricoles plus éloignées, ce qui peut s'expliquer par une application moins stricte de la loi dans ces zones, par une insuffisance des travailleurs adultes et par des possibilités limitées pour les enfants d'aller à l'école en raison du manque d'infrastructures scolaires.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>Considérés globalement, ces résultats indiquent surtout que le taux de prévalance de travail des enfants, et potentiellement d'autres sujets sensibles, n'ont pas été mesurés avec précision. Par ailleurs, ils montrent que le travail des enfants est toujours un problème endémique en Côte d'Ivoire, même dans les plantations de cacao certifiées sans travail des enfants.</p>
<p>Comprendre les diverses raisons justifiant le recours permanent des agriculteurs au travail des enfants et leur réticence à l'admettre est une première étape majeure dans la conception de politiques plus efficaces. </p>
<p>En prenant en compte le phénomène du biais de désirabilité sociale dans les recherches futures, les gouvernements et les partenaires du développement peuvent peuvent être amenés à mesurer avec plus de précision le travail des enfants à et à éclairer l'élaboration de politiques plus efficaces.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174626/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marine Jouvin travaille pour Touton S.A. </span></em></p>La prévalence du travail des enfants, et éventuellement d'autres sujets sensibles, ne sont pas mesurés avec précision.Marine Jouvin, PhD Candidate in development economics, Université de BordeauxLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1555522021-03-31T19:19:15Z2021-03-31T19:19:15ZChocolate’s secret ingredient is the fermenting microbes that make it taste so good<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392677/original/file-20210330-21-2fmbyo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C249%2C4899%2C3408&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Underneath the shiny wrapper, a chocolate bunny is a fermented food.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/march-2021-brandenburg-hornow-chocolate-easter-bunnies-are-news-photo/1231995539">Patrick Pleul/picture alliance via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Whether baked as chips into a cookie, melted into a sweet warm drink or molded into the shape of a smiling bunny, chocolate is one of the world’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clnu.2018.05.019">most universally consumed foods</a>.</p>
<p>Even the biggest chocolate lovers, though, might not recognize what this ancient food has in common with kimchi and kombucha: its flavors are due to fermentation. That familiar chocolate taste is thanks to tiny microorganisms that help transform chocolate’s raw ingredients into the much-beloved rich, complex final product.</p>
<p>In labs from Peru to Belgium to Ivory Coast, self-proclaimed <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=QjIM6yUAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">chocolate scientists like me</a> are working to understand just how fermentation changes chocolate’s flavor. Sometimes we create artificial fermentations in the lab. Other times we take cacao bean samples from real fermentations “in the wild.” Often, we make our experimental batches into chocolate and ask a few lucky volunteers to taste it and tell us what flavors they detect.</p>
<p>After decades of running tests like this, researchers have solved many of the mysteries that govern cacao fermentation, including which microorganisms participate and how this step governs chocolate flavor and quality.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392678/original/file-20210330-15-1c6otxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="man reaches up toward pods growing from trunk of cacao tree" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392678/original/file-20210330-15-1c6otxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392678/original/file-20210330-15-1c6otxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392678/original/file-20210330-15-1c6otxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392678/original/file-20210330-15-1c6otxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392678/original/file-20210330-15-1c6otxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392678/original/file-20210330-15-1c6otxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392678/original/file-20210330-15-1c6otxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A plantation owner in Ivory Coast checks the pods on one of his cacao trees.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/david-youant-a-plantation-owner-checks-his-cocoa-trees-in-news-photo/77612213">Issouf Sanogo/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>From seed pod to chocolate bar</h2>
<p>The food you know as chocolate starts its life as the seeds of <a href="https://doi.org/10.19103/as.2017.0021.01">football-shaped pods of fruit</a> growing directly from the trunk of the <em>Theobroma cacao</em> tree. It looks like something Dr. Seuss would have designed. But as long as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-018-0697-x">3,900 years ago the Olmecs of Central America</a> had figured out a multi-step process to transform these giant seed pods into an edible treat.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392680/original/file-20210330-19-1h808e1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="woman holds a halved pod displaying the seeds" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392680/original/file-20210330-19-1h808e1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392680/original/file-20210330-19-1h808e1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=691&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392680/original/file-20210330-19-1h808e1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=691&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392680/original/file-20210330-19-1h808e1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=691&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392680/original/file-20210330-19-1h808e1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392680/original/file-20210330-19-1h808e1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392680/original/file-20210330-19-1h808e1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Inside the pods are seeds and pulp.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/close-up-on-cocoa-beans-in-a-halved-pod-on-septembre-25-news-photo/1270250558">Camille Delbos/Art In All of Us/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>First, workers crack the brightly colored fruit open and scoop out the seeds and pulp. The seeds, now called “beans,” cure and drain over the course of three to 10 days before drying under the Sun. The dry beans are roasted, then crushed with sugar and sometimes dried milk <a href="https://www.newfoodmagazine.com/article/1949/using-science-to-make-the-best-chocolate/">until the mixture feels so smooth</a> you can’t distinguish the particles on your tongue. At this point, the chocolate is ready to be fashioned into bars, chips or confections.</p>
<p>It’s during the curing stage that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10408690490464104">fermentation naturally occurs</a>. Chocolate’s complex flavor consists of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1021/jf0114177">hundreds of individual compounds</a>, many of which are generated during fermentation. Fermentation is the process of improving the qualities of a food through the controlled activity of microbes, and it allows the bitter, otherwise tasteless cacao seeds to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10408390701719272">develop the rich flavors associated with chocolate</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392681/original/file-20210330-15-16bcdtk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Drying beans fill trays outside under a sunny blue sky" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392681/original/file-20210330-15-16bcdtk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392681/original/file-20210330-15-16bcdtk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392681/original/file-20210330-15-16bcdtk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392681/original/file-20210330-15-16bcdtk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392681/original/file-20210330-15-16bcdtk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392681/original/file-20210330-15-16bcdtk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392681/original/file-20210330-15-16bcdtk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Beans dry in the Sun at a plantation in Madagascar, and microbes invisibly do their work.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/cocoa-harvest-on-the-millot-plantation-in-the-north-west-of-news-photo/590675091">Andia/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Microorganisms at work</h2>
<p>Cacao fermentation is a multi-step process. Any compound microorganisms produced along the way that changes the taste of the beans will also change the taste of the final chocolate. </p>
<p>The first fermentation step may be familiar to home brewers, because it involves yeasts – some of them the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jam.13045">same yeasts that ferment beer and wine</a>. Just like the yeast in your favorite brew, yeast in a cacao fermentation produces alcohol by digesting the sugary pulp that clings to the beans.</p>
<p>This process generates fruity-tasting molecules called esters and floral-tasting fusel alcohols. These compounds soak into the beans and are later present in the finished chocolate. </p>
<p>As the pulp breaks down, oxygen enters the fermenting mass and the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10408690490464104">yeast population declines as oxygen-loving bacteria take over</a>. These bacteria are known as acetic acid bacteria because they convert the alcohol generated by the yeast into acetic acid.</p>
<p>The acid soaks into the beans, causing biochemical changes. The sprouting plant dies. Fats agglomerate. Some enzymes break proteins down into smaller peptides, which become very “chocolatey”-smelling during the subsequent roasting stage. Other enzymes break apart the <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2018.00087">antioxidant polyphenol molecules</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jaoac/102.5.1388">for which chocolate has gained renown as a superfood</a>. As a result, contrary to its reputation, most chocolate contains very few polyphenols, or even none at all.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392682/original/file-20210330-13-1ygq6ov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in a hat rakes a large tray of drying cacao seeds" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392682/original/file-20210330-13-1ygq6ov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392682/original/file-20210330-13-1ygq6ov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392682/original/file-20210330-13-1ygq6ov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392682/original/file-20210330-13-1ygq6ov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392682/original/file-20210330-13-1ygq6ov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392682/original/file-20210330-13-1ygq6ov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392682/original/file-20210330-13-1ygq6ov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">As the drying progresses, different microorganisms naturally emerge to do their job preparing the beans.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/man-dries-cacao-beans-at-a-plantation-in-jutiapa-news-photo/1001093156">Orlando Sierra/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>All the reactions kicked off by acetic acid bacteria have a major impact on flavor. These acids encourage the degradation of heavily astringent, deep purple polyphenol molecules into milder-tasting, brown-colored chemicals called o-quinones. Here is where cacao beans turn from bitter-tasting to rich and nutty. This flavor transformation is accompanied by a color shift from reddish-purple to brown, and it is the reason the chocolate you’re familiar with is brown and not purple.</p>
<p>Finally, as acid slowly evaporates and sugars are used up, other species – including <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10408690490464104">filamentous fungi and spore-forming <em>Bacillus</em> bacteria</a> – take over.</p>
<p>As vital as microbes are to the chocolate-making process, sometimes organisms can ruin a fermentation. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodres.2014.04.032">An overgrowth of the spore-forming <em>Bacillus</em> bacteria</a> is associated with compounds that lead to rancid, cheesy flavors.</p>
<h2>Terroir of a place and its microbes</h2>
<p>Cacao is a wild fermentation – farmers rely on natural microbes in the environment to create unique, local flavors. This phenomenon is known as “terroir”: the characteristic flair imparted by a place. In the same way that grapes take on regional terroir, these wild microbes, combined with each farmer’s particular process, confer terroir on beans fermented in each location.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392683/original/file-20210330-23-1kgttxf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a chocolate maker's hands remove finished candies from a chocolate mold" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392683/original/file-20210330-23-1kgttxf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392683/original/file-20210330-23-1kgttxf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392683/original/file-20210330-23-1kgttxf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392683/original/file-20210330-23-1kgttxf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392683/original/file-20210330-23-1kgttxf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392683/original/file-20210330-23-1kgttxf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392683/original/file-20210330-23-1kgttxf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">High-end chocolate-makers are choosy about their beans.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/chocolate-production-royalty-free-image/175490857">twohumans/E+ via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Market demand for these <a href="https://damecacao.com/craft-chocolate-continue-to-grow/">fine, high-quality beans is growing</a>. Makers of gourmet, small-batch chocolate hand-select beans based on their distinctive terroir in order to produce chocolate with an impressive range of flavor nuances. </p>
<p>If you’ve experienced chocolate only in the form of a bar you might grab near the grocery store checkout, you probably have little idea of the range and complexity that truly excellent chocolate can exhibit.</p>
<p>[<em>Over 100,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>A bar from Akesson’s Madagascar estate may be reminiscent of raspberries and apricots, while Canadian chocolate-maker Qantu’s wild-fermented Peruvian bars taste like they’ve been soaked in Sauvignon Blanc. Yet in both cases, the bars contain nothing except cacao beans and some sugar. </p>
<p>This is the power of fermentation: to change, convert, transform. It takes the usual and make it unusual – thanks to the magic of microbes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155552/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Caitlin Clark does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Sauerkraut, sourdough, beer…and chocolate? They’re all fermented foods that rely on microbes of various types to transform the flavor of their raw ingredients into something totally different.Caitlin Clark, Ph.D. Candidate in Food Science, Colorado State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1543342021-02-10T13:14:11Z2021-02-10T13:14:11ZTiny cacao flowers and fickle midges are part of a pollination puzzle that limits chocolate production<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382043/original/file-20210202-23-1me4d8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=18%2C9%2C6211%2C4138&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Only 10%-20% of cacao flowers are pollinated.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/chocolate-bar-cocoa-powder-cocoa-beans-and-cocoa-royalty-free-image/1193489803">carlosgaw/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s almost impossible to imagine a world without chocolate. Yet cacao trees, which are the source of chocolate, are vulnerable. </p>
<p>I am a passionate chocolate lover <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=qvmWZYwAAAAJ">and an entomologist</a> who studies cacao pollination. The crop’s sustainability currently appears to depend on several species of tiny fly pollinators, who are frankly struggling to get the job done. </p>
<h2>Thousands of flowers</h2>
<p>Chocolate is derived from the seeds of the cacao tree, <em>Theobroma cacao L.</em>, which literally means “food of the gods.” The plant <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-018-0168-6">originated in the Western Amazon region of South America</a> and has been cultivated for more than 3,000 years in many parts of Central and South America. Today it’s grown in equatorial regions around the world, including western Africa and several tropical regions in Asia. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382052/original/file-20210202-17-1xya6ws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Trunk and branches of cacao tree covered in tiny flowers." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382052/original/file-20210202-17-1xya6ws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382052/original/file-20210202-17-1xya6ws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382052/original/file-20210202-17-1xya6ws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382052/original/file-20210202-17-1xya6ws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382052/original/file-20210202-17-1xya6ws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382052/original/file-20210202-17-1xya6ws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382052/original/file-20210202-17-1xya6ws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cacao blossoms are unusual for a tree.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/cacao-flowers-on-tree-royalty-free-image/1137440314">dimarik/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A mature cacao tree can produce many thousands of flowers each year. These flowers are tiny, only a half inch or so in diameter (1-2 cm). The flowers typically grow in clusters <a href="https://upf.com/book.asp?id=9780813030449">directly from the trunk of the tree or off large branches</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Close-up of cacao pod on a tree." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382057/original/file-20210202-15-fkjd00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382057/original/file-20210202-15-fkjd00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382057/original/file-20210202-15-fkjd00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382057/original/file-20210202-15-fkjd00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382057/original/file-20210202-15-fkjd00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382057/original/file-20210202-15-fkjd00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382057/original/file-20210202-15-fkjd00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pods can be green, white, yellow, purplish or red in color.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/close-up-of-cacao-fruit-on-tree-royalty-free-image/1205928514">Neilstha Firman/EyeEm via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Each flower requires pollination to successfully produce a nearly football-sized fruit – a pod containing 30-60 seeds, which can be processed to make chocolate. </p>
<p>It sounds straightforward but, in fact, successful <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ppees.2010.02.005">cacao pollination is problematic</a> in many regions. Only around 10%-20% of the flowers produced by a cacao tree are successfully pollinated. The rest, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2017.05.021">up to 90%, never receive pollen</a> – or do not receive enough pollen to create fruits.</p>
<p>Scientists don’t fully understand cacao pollination, which is surprising given that over 50 million people worldwide currently <a href="https://www.iisd.org/ssi/commodities/cocoa-coverage/">depend on chocolate for their livelihood</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382532/original/file-20210204-22-1dkpkg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A midge on human skin." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382532/original/file-20210204-22-1dkpkg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382532/original/file-20210204-22-1dkpkg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382532/original/file-20210204-22-1dkpkg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382532/original/file-20210204-22-1dkpkg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382532/original/file-20210204-22-1dkpkg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382532/original/file-20210204-22-1dkpkg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382532/original/file-20210204-22-1dkpkg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In the U.S., some midges are better known as ‘no-see-ums.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://eol.org/media/7472715">tompiast</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A big job for a tiny fly</h2>
<p>The insects responsible for pollinating cacao’s tiny flowers are, themselves, also tiny, in order to access the flower’s reproductive structures. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2017.05.021">Biting midges from the <em>Ceratopogonidae</em> family and gall midges from the <em>Cecidomyiidae</em> family</a> are among the most important known cacao pollinators worldwide. </p>
<p>The majority of cacao trees are what are known as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/erx293">self-incompatible</a>, meaning they cannot pollinate themselves. Successful pollinators must pick up pollen from the male parts of a flower of one tree and deposit it on the female parts of a flower on another tree. </p>
<p>Cacao flowers are also short-lived, typically receptive to pollen for only one or two days. Flowers that do not receive ample pollen <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2017.05.021">die and fall within 36 hours</a> of opening.</p>
<p>Evidence suggests <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.1491">improving midge habitat</a> can increase fruit yield. So, in some cacao-growing areas, current farming practices include developing and maintaining suitable ground habitat within and near cacao orchards in an effort to increase the number of midges capable of pollen transmission.</p>
<h2>Lingering mysteries</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://doi.org/10.21273/HORTSCI12852-18">success of artificial or hand pollination</a>, which can more than double yields, shows cacao trees are capable of producing many more pods than they currently do.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lXe-xptz2Nk?wmode=transparent&start=272" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Workers at a cacao farm in Ghana demonstrate how they hand-pollinate the tree’s flowers.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s hard not to wonder: Why aren’t midges doing a better job of pollinating cacao flowers? Scientists think part of the answer might be that midges <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-019-01118-9">don’t solely depend upon cacao flowers for their life cycle</a>. Because they can get sugar from other plant sources, they are likely passive rather than active pollinators of cacao. Scientists also wonder if they are up to the task of flying the significant distances between wild trees.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>All of which begs the question: Are there insects better designed for the job? And, if so, where did they go?</p>
<p>Most studies linking midges to cacao pollination were conducted in orchards, while the biology of wild cacao pollination is almost completely unstudied. </p>
<p>One exception is a study that looked at <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10457-016-0019-8">both cultivated and wild cacao in Bolivia</a>. It found that midges represented only 2% of all insect visitors to wild trees. Other flies and tiny wasps were more common there. </p>
<p>These results are intriguing and raise the possibility that one or more unknown insects are the primary pollinators of cacao in the wild. Only additional study of wild cacao may reveal if this is the case. Such information could have far-reaching implications for the chocolate industry.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154334/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>DeWayne Shoemaker works for the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture</span></em></p>Entomologists wonder if the insects currently pollinating farmed cacao are the right ones for the task.DeWayne Shoemaker, Professor and Department Head, Entomology and Plant Pathology, University of TennesseeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1150252019-06-10T11:34:11Z2019-06-10T11:34:11ZTrophies made from human skulls hint at regional conflicts around the time of Maya civilization’s mysterious collapse<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278369/original/file-20190606-98017-iuhf9m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=449%2C481%2C3447%2C2362&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How did military conflict fit into the end of a mighty civilization?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Guatemala-Mayas/6877823dbcf3404591f9510bd5d3efd7/2/0">AP Photo/Moises Castillo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Two trophy skulls, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/laq.2019.1">discovered by archaeologists in the jungles of Belize</a>, may help shed light on the little-understood collapse of the once powerful Classic Maya civilization.</p>
<p>The defleshed and painted human skulls, meant to be worn around the neck as pendants, were buried with a warrior over a thousand years ago at Pacbitun, a Maya city. They likely represent gruesome symbols of military might: war trophies made from the heads of defeated foes.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277633/original/file-20190603-69059-1tb5w88.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277633/original/file-20190603-69059-1tb5w88.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277633/original/file-20190603-69059-1tb5w88.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277633/original/file-20190603-69059-1tb5w88.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277633/original/file-20190603-69059-1tb5w88.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277633/original/file-20190603-69059-1tb5w88.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277633/original/file-20190603-69059-1tb5w88.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277633/original/file-20190603-69059-1tb5w88.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fragment of the Pacbitun trophy skull.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://doi.org/10.1017/laq.2019.1">Drawings by Christophe Helmke; Laserscan model by Jesse Pruitt</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Both skulls are similar to depictions of trophy skulls worn by victorious soldiers in stone carvings and on painted ceramic vessels from other Maya sites.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277638/original/file-20190603-69095-1k1a5ql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277638/original/file-20190603-69095-1k1a5ql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277638/original/file-20190603-69095-1k1a5ql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277638/original/file-20190603-69095-1k1a5ql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277638/original/file-20190603-69095-1k1a5ql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277638/original/file-20190603-69095-1k1a5ql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277638/original/file-20190603-69095-1k1a5ql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277638/original/file-20190603-69095-1k1a5ql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A carving from the Maya city of Yaxchilan depicts the local ruler forcing a subdued captive to kiss the shield of his captor. At the small of his back, the victorious king wears a decorated trophy skull.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://doi.org/10.1017/laq.2019.1">Drawing by Ian Graham</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Drilled holes likely held feathers, leather straps or both. Other holes served to anchor the jaws in place and suspend the cranium around the warrior’s neck, while the backs were sawed off to make the skulls lie flat on the wearer’s chest.</p>
<p>Flecks of red paint decorate one of the jaws. It’s carved with glyphic writing that includes what my collaborator <a href="https://ccrs.ku.dk/staff/?pure=en%2Fpersons%2Fchristophe-helmke(b726201f-2e3a-4217-a929-548e07b4aa7e)%2Fpublications.html">Christophe Helmke</a>, an expert on Maya writing, believes is the first known instance of the Maya term for “trophy skull.”</p>
<p>What do these skulls — where they were found and who they were from — tell us about the end of a powerful political system that thrived for centuries, covering southeastern Mexico, all of Guatemala and Belize, and portions of Honduras and El Salvador? My colleagues <a href="https://scholar.google.com.au/citations?user=HtKKK9AAAAAJ&hl=en">and I</a> are thinking about them as clues to understanding this tumultuous period.</p>
<p><iframe id="PPTt3" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/PPTt3/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>What ended a civilization?</h2>
<p>The vast Maya empire flourished throughout Central America, with the first major cities appearing between 750 and 500 B.C. But beginning in the southern lowlands of Guatemala, Belize and Honduras in the eighth century A.D., people abandoned major Maya cities throughout the region. Archaeologists are fascinated by the mystery of what we call “the collapse” of this once powerful empire.</p>
<p>Earlier studies focused on identifying a single cause of the collapse. Could it have been <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ancene.2013.12.002">environmental degradation</a> resulting from the increasing demands of overpopulated cities? <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S095653610000170X">Warfare</a>? <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/671054">Loss of faith in leaders</a>? <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/690046">Drought</a>? </p>
<p>All of these certainly took place, but none on its own fully explains what researchers know about the collapse that gradually swept through the landscape over the course of a century and a half. Today, archaeologists <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781315543017/chapters/10.4324/9781315543017-5">acknowledge the complexity</a> of what happened.</p>
<p>Clearly violence and warfare contributed to the end of some southern lowland cities, as evidenced by <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/2019/03/lasers-reveal-maya-war-ruins/">quickly constructed fortifications</a> identified by aerial LiDAR surveys at a number of sites.</p>
<p>Trophy skulls, together with a growing list of scattered finds from other sites in Belize, Honduras and Mexico, provide intriguing evidence that the conflict may have been civil in nature, pitting rising powers in the north against the established dynasties in the south.</p>
<h2>Piecing together the skulls’ social context</h2>
<p>Ceramic vessels found alongside the Pacbitun warrior and his (or her – the bones were too fragmentary to confidently determine sex) trophy skull date to the eighth or ninth century, just prior to the site’s abandonment.</p>
<p>During this period, Pacbitun and other Maya cities in the southern lowlands were beginning their decline, while Maya political centers in the north, in what is now the Yucatan of Mexico, rose to dominance. But the exact timing and nature of this power transition remains uncertain.</p>
<p>In many of these northern cities, <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-0-387-48871-4_7">art from this period is notoriously militaristic</a>, abounding with skulls and bones and often showing war captives being killed and decapitated.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278587/original/file-20190609-52771-1khyj8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278587/original/file-20190609-52771-1khyj8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278587/original/file-20190609-52771-1khyj8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278587/original/file-20190609-52771-1khyj8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278587/original/file-20190609-52771-1khyj8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278587/original/file-20190609-52771-1khyj8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278587/original/file-20190609-52771-1khyj8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278587/original/file-20190609-52771-1khyj8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Portions of the Pakal Na trophy skull, found in the south with a northern warrior.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Patricia A. McAnany</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At Pakal Na, another southern site in Belize, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-48871-4_4">a similar trophy skull</a> was discovered inscribed with fire and animal imagery resembling northern military symbolism, suggesting a northern origin of the warrior it was buried with. The presence of northern military paraphernalia in the form of these skulls may point to a loss of control by local leaders.</p>
<p>Archaeologist <a href="https://anthropology.unc.edu/person/patricia-a-mcanany/">Patricia McAnany</a> has argued that the presence of northerners in the river valleys of central Belize may be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/07409710701229565">related to the lucrative trade of cacao</a>, the plant from which chocolate is made. Cacao was an important ingredient in rituals, and a symbol of wealth and power of Maya elites. However, the geology of the northern Yucatan makes it difficult to grow cacao on a large scale, necessitating the establishment of a reliable supply source from elsewhere.</p>
<p>At the northern site of Xuenkal, Mexico, <a href="https://ucmexus.ucr.edu/results/resident-scholars/vera-g-tiesler.html">Vera Tiesler</a> and colleagues used <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2018.04.023">strontium isotopes to pinpoint the geographic origin</a> of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1179/009346910X12707321358676">a warrior and his trophy skull</a>. He was local from the north. But the trophy skull he brought home, found atop his chest in burial, was from an individual who grew up in the south.</p>
<p>Other evidence at a number of sites in the southern highlands seems to mark a sudden and violent end for the community’s ruling order. Archaeologists have found evidence for the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956536105050091">execution of one ruling family</a> and <a href="https://www.academia.edu/649819/Epigraphic_and_Archaeological_Evidence_for_Cave_Desecration_in_Ancient_Maya_Warfare">desecration of sacred sites</a> and elite tombs. At the regional capital site of Tipan Chen Uitz, approximately 20 miles (30 kilometers) east of Pacbitun, my colleagues and I found remains of several <a href="https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2017.85">carved stone monuments</a> that seem to have been intentionally smashed and strewn across the front of the main ceremonial pyramid.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277640/original/file-20190603-69083-akfzx8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277640/original/file-20190603-69083-akfzx8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277640/original/file-20190603-69083-akfzx8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=308&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277640/original/file-20190603-69083-akfzx8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=308&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277640/original/file-20190603-69083-akfzx8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=308&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277640/original/file-20190603-69083-akfzx8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277640/original/file-20190603-69083-akfzx8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277640/original/file-20190603-69083-akfzx8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Another portion of the Pacbitun trophy skull.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://doi.org/10.1017/laq.2019.1">Drawing by Shawn Morton</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Trophy skulls and power dynamics</h2>
<p>Archaeologists are not only interested in identifying the timing and the social and environmental factors associated with collapse, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10814-007-9015-x">which vary in different regions</a>. We’re also trying to figure out how specific communities and their leaders responded to the unique combinations of these stresses they faced.</p>
<p>While the evidence from just a handful of trophy skulls does not conclusively show that sites in parts of the southern lowlands were being overrun by northern warriors, it does at least point to the role of violence and, potentially, warfare as contributing to the end of the established political order in central Belize. </p>
<p>These grisly artifacts lend an intriguing element to the sweep of events that resulted in the end of one of the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/archaeology/prehistory/classic-maya">richest, most sophisticated, scientifically advanced cultures</a> of its time.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115025/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gabriel D. Wrobel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Grisly war trophies made from the heads of vanquished enemies certainly grab attention. But archaeologists are more interested in what they may tell about a tumultuous time of shifting political power.Gabriel D. Wrobel, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/811202017-08-01T09:08:58Z2017-08-01T09:08:58ZWhich type of chocolate is best for your health? Here’s the science<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179601/original/file-20170725-28293-144uflp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/205878508?size=medium_jpg">Fortyforks/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Aztec emperor <a href="http://jn.nutrition.org/content/130/8/2057S.long">Montezuma II</a> said that a soldier could march for a <a href="http://jn.nutrition.org/content/130/8/2057S.long">whole day on a single cup</a> of cocoa. But this was not the hot chocolate we would be familiar with today. It was gritty, bitter and often had a fatty scum on top. And if that doesn’t sound unpleasant enough, it was occasionally laced with chilli or <a href="http://www.heritagedaily.com/2015/08/medicinal-and-ritualistic-uses-for-chocolate-in-mesoamerica-2/98809">human blood</a>. </p>
<p>Modern sweet chocolate – with its added milk powder and sugar – is a product of the <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/a-brief-history-of-chocolate-21860917/">industrial revolution</a>. Until fairly recently, chocolate wasn’t even considered to be a potential health food; it was seen more as a guilty pleasure. </p>
<p>But over the past 30 years, research has started to shift our view of chocolate and cocoa – the base ingredient of chocolate. (Sometimes cocoa is also called cacao, generally when it is unprocessed or raw. Currently, however, there is no formally recognised difference between cocoa and cacao.)</p>
<p>Arguably, the tide of opinion began to change in 1997 following the publication of a study by researchers at Harvard University on the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3835452/">Kuna people</a>. The researchers reported that the Kuna, who live on islands off the coast of Panama, have very low blood pressure, live longer, and have lower rates of heart attack, stroke, type 2 diabetes and cancer than their peers on mainland Panama. The thing that differentiates the island-dwelling Kuna from those who live on the mainland is their high consumption of cocoa. On average, they drink more then five cups of the stuff a day. </p>
<p>Since the publication of this study, many other laboratory and clinical studies seem to have confirmed the beneficial effects of chocolate and cocoa on markers of heart health, including the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23039340">health of blood vessels</a>, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20968113">HDL (“good”) cholesterol levels</a> and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28439881">blood pressure</a>.</p>
<p>So what is it in cocoa that confers these health benefits? The answer is likely to be flavanols, particularly a compound called epicatechin. In laboratory studies, epicatechin has been shown to be a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3038885/">powerful antioxidant</a>. However, the compound doesn’t appear to behave as anticipated in actual <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ijfs.13075/abstract">humans</a> as it is not possible to absorb the epicatechins in high enough concentrations for them to be effective <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17157175">purely as an antioxidant</a>. </p>
<p>Instead, they appear to act through a number of pathways in our bodies, including helping blood vessels to relax more readily which can lower blood pressure, facilitate the manufacture of HDL cholesterol and support the action of insulin. This appears to occur by epicatechin <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ijfs.13075/abstract">supporting the controlling pathways</a> behind these biological effects. </p>
<p>A key challenge in chocolate being a health food is its energy, fat and sugar content which are not in line with government <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/445503/SACN_Carbohydrates_and_Health.pdf">dietary recommendations</a>. A further problem is that most of the chocolate available in the shops contains inadequate amounts of flavanols, including epicatechin, to have any real effect on our health. </p>
<p>So, how can we explain the results seen in many of the studies. Well, in our <a href="http://www.pennutrition.com/KnowledgePathway.aspx?kpid=6425&trid=15414&trcatid=42">recent review</a> it was noted that many research trials used specially made chocolates which are not available in shops and the observed effects in the Kuna could be the result of the large amounts of cocoa they consume.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179599/original/file-20170725-11177-1ifbzcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179599/original/file-20170725-11177-1ifbzcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179599/original/file-20170725-11177-1ifbzcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179599/original/file-20170725-11177-1ifbzcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179599/original/file-20170725-11177-1ifbzcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179599/original/file-20170725-11177-1ifbzcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179599/original/file-20170725-11177-1ifbzcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Montezuma II: chocolate promoter.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6885717">André Thévet/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The raw cocoa trend</h2>
<p>If cocoa and chocolate don’t contain enough epicatechin to provide heart-health benefits, what about going to the source: raw cocoa? </p>
<p>There <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2016/01/07/cacao-health-benefits-recipes-cocoa_n_6975986.html">is a trend</a> for consuming cold-pressed cocoa beans – the fruit of the <em>Theobroma cacao</em> tree – and claims are made about <a href="https://iquitsugar.com/raw-cacao-vs-cocoa-whats-the-difference/">raw cocoa</a> being more potent in its ability to improve health. </p>
<p>However, in our <a href="http://www.pennutrition.com/KnowledgePathway.aspx?kpid=6425&trid=15414&trcatid=42">recent trawl through</a> the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318068152_Cocoa_and_chocolate_their_clinical_benefits_Insights_in_study_design">literature</a>, we didn’t find any studies that investigated the effects of raw cocoa on reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease. All the studies we found used industrially produced chocolate or cocoa – which could potentially contain <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1750-3841.13672/full">more of the active compounds</a>, the flavanols, than natural cocoa. </p>
<p>A major weakness of the research is that a lot of it was industry funded – and the chocolate used in the studies was specially designed for the research. This allows for better control in the studies and the ability to pack more of the active epicatechins into a smaller bar. But it also takes the research results even further away from the impact commercially available, high street chocolate would have on a typical consumer. </p>
<p>So, chocolate, is not a health food, although the research shows some interesting effects. The best current advice is that commercially available chocolate should not be eaten just to improve health. But that doesn’t stop it tasting good.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81120/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Duane Mellor received funding from Nestle and Barry Callebaut for work included as part of his thesis. He is also currently Chair of the Communications and Marketing Board of the British Dietetic Association</span></em></p>Don’t believe all the healthy hype.Duane Mellor, Senior Lecturer, Coventry UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.