The Divine Pleasure of Chocolate

Nutella filled doughnuts, Cadbury Caramel Eggs, chocolate chip cookies, millionaire shortbreads… - we all have our favourite treat. Even the people who claim not to have a “sweet tooth” occasionally enjoy a brownie or a bar of chocolate, while “chocoholics” consume large amounts of chocolate on a daily basis. Although theoretically chocolate shouldn’t be more addictive than other food, its most devoted fans often experience strong cravings. Regardless of our love towards the mouth melting brown goodness, nutrition experts exclude it from the majority of purifying and slimming diets.

Could you imagine life without this

sweet guilty pleasure?

Chocolate wasn’t always a part of our diet. It wasn’t until 16th century Europe that many began savouring cocoa products, with the early liquid form consumed in South America as early as in 4th century BC. The Olmecs first began using chocolate in ceremonies and for medical purposes. The Maya associated chocolate with Gods consisting of roasted cacao seeds mixed with hot water, chilli peppers and cornmeal. The Aztecs rendered chocolate a product with divine lineage, believing it was a gift from one of their gods, Quatzacoatl. Drank cold, it was considered an aphrodisiac.

Variations of solid chocolate (milk, white and dark) became a common and much beloved treat in the past century. Year 2017 brought an unexpected breakthrough in the chocolate industry: ruby chocolate, the first new type of chocolate in almost a century! The youngest type of chocolate has a beautiful pink colour and, according to its creators, the taste isn’t “bitter, milky or sweet, but a tension between berry fruitiness and luscious smoothness”. It all sounds very promising, but part of the connoisseurs who already managed to bite in some of the first ruby bars have said the latest invention doesn’t really have the characteristic cocoa flavour associated with chocolate.

I reckon it’s safe to assume that chocolate that

doesn’t taste like chocolate doesn’t sound like a great invention to anyone.

De gustibus non est disputandum though, and putting my strong feelings towards *proper* chocolate aside, I can only encourage everyone to try the pinkalicious novelty. Various online shops offer a range of their ruby treats and a KitKat covered in controversial chocolate has been available for over a month in UK supermarkets, so all you have to do is look for it.

Before you begin your trip to the closest supermarket, let’s take a moment to have a look at the health effects of chocolate. Although science hasn’t yet confirmed whether Aztecs were right or not, chocolate is still considered an aphrodisiac and since a lot has changed since 15th century, people of all sexes and genders, ethnicities and religions can enjoy its mouth-watering smoothness.

So if you ever shared a chocolate fondue

with your date and it went really delicious and amazing, it was you, not the magical power of chocolate.

Or rather you employing a simple truth (everyone loves chocolate) and not the never actually proven excitative power of chocolate.

Despite all its pros, chocolate can also have some negative influence on our bodies, Unfortunately for the ones experiencing the misfortune of bad skin, chocolate does seem to have an impact on it - some of its ingredients increase the severity of acne. Moreover, it’s caloric value doesn’t look too appealing either - 100 g of chocolate rarely contains less than 500 calories. Excessive consumption of chocolate leads to weight gain and often obesity.

But so do all the good things in the world, and Galaxy Salted Caramel is definitely worth going for a 30 minutes run (I assumed you’d eat it all in one go because let’s be honest - only a real titan could simply eat a piece and leave the rest for later). As Judith Viorst put it: