JOIN USGreat news. Chocolate may actually be good for you!Is there anyone who doesn’t like chocolate? For some reason our hardware seems to be wired in a chocoholic way and all the software in the world doesn’t seem to be able to change this significantly. Chocolate gets such a bad rap from experts that we are never able to quench our thirst for this treat.
Well, there may be news now that will help you relax on this score. More importantly this has been brought out not by some fly-by-night researcher who wants to create a sensation. On the contrary, no less than MIT students are responsible for this new study. For the past six years, a popular club at the prestigious school has celebrated the science of chocolate!
The Boston Globe recently had an article about ‘The Laboratory for Chocolate Science,’ at MIT, and the kids have some cool scientific facts about chocolate. So what did these geniuses discover?
*Chocolate has no caffeine! Can this be true? Yes, according to an article in a prestigious journal, Biochemist, as quoted by the MIT researchers. Processed chocolate, when broken down into its chemical elements, showed an undetectable amount of caffeine. This perhaps explains why many of us can’t handle a single cup of coffee, but can down a lot of chocolate.
*Chocolate contains serotonin. Pretty much all of us know that serotonin equates to happiness. Serotonin, which is the most concentrated of all the neurotransmitters contained in chocolate according to the MIT site, is responsible for feelings of well-being and contentment, as well as curbing anxiety and depression. So, it is no wonder that we feel so good after eating chocolate even when we are plagued with guilt that we have exceeded our sugar and calories quota.
*Chocolate can “bloom.” What is “bloom?” You know when you open a package of chocolate that’s been sitting on the shelf for awhile and it has some yucky looking white patch on it? This is called “bloom,” and it happens when, over time, fat (cocoa butter) molecules suspended inside the chocolate bar rise to the surface and crystallize. “Bloomed” chocolate is not dangerous to eat, but it will be dry and less flavourful than the original product. It does however make you bloom!
*Chocolate is a “polymorph. This means that there are multiple ways — VI, to be precise (they’re given Roman numerals) — to arrange the particles of chocolate in its solid phase. The most desirable is polymorph V (5), which is stable enough for that pleasant “crack,” but still fluid enough to have that delicious melt-in-your-mouth feeling that we all long for when we know there is a bar of chocolate around.
*Chocolate is cool. In its optimal form (polymorph form V), chocolate’s melting point is around 35 degrees Celsius. This is just below the average temperature inside the human body. So really chocolate is cooler than us. “The slight difference is the scientific reason why chocolate melts in that slow, delectable way: it’s warm enough to melt, but not so warm as to liquefy on contact,” said the MITians.
So, what are you waiting for? Choose chocolate (But if you want to play it safe, opt for dark chocolate please.)