How Beans Become Your Favorite Chocolate Bar

Chocolate seeds or beans are harvested by hand. After they are taken from the bean pods, they are laid out to dry and allowed to go through the fermentation process.

As the temperature rises to 120 degrees, the sugars in the pulp are broken down by enzymes into vinegar and other acids. The beans are further dried and roasted, followed by the removal of the dry husks to reveal the cocoa nibs. The nibs are crushed into a paste called cocoa liquor which is completely non-alcoholic. The liquor paste is about ½ cocoa butter and ½ cocoa solids. Cocoa butter is sold to the food industry as well as other industries; the bulk of the cocoa going to the food industry. The cosmetic industry only uses about 1% of the total harvest of cocoa butter for to its excellent moisturizing properties.

Chocolate

As an emollient for the skin, cocoa butter is one of the best. It has a soothing mild chocolate scent & is pale yellow in color. The fat or cocoa butter is extracted from the cocoa nibs (cocoa beans). Cocoa butter accounts for about ½ of the cocoa bean before processing. Cocoa butter is composed of a number of triglycerides and tocopherols (natural anti-oxidants which can delay the onset of oxidative stress). Cocoa butter is considered to be one of the most complex fats found in nature.

Cocoa

Chocolate is known to have over 500 different chemical compounds and it is the combination of compounds that make chocolate such a powerful nutrient. The USDA states that a bar of chocolate contains a couple grams of protein, fat, carbohydrates and fiber, as well as significant amounts of iron, copper, zinc, phosphorus, potassium, calcium and magnesium. Chocolate is also a significant source of Phytonutrients. (I’ll post about those later.)

When we are discussing chocolate, it is pertinent to mention here that it is dark chocolate that has the most health benefits. Although milk and white chocolate do have some health benefits; it is dark chocolate which is minimally processed that is the highest in flavanoids. There is a reduction of health benefits with the addition of sugar and fat found in milk and white chocolate. Dark or Bittersweet chocolate must contain at least 34% cocoa solids, but presently amounts of 60 to 70% cacao is mo likely. High quality dark chocolate contains a small amount of sugar which decreases as the percentage of cacao gets higher.