Monday, September 7, 2015

Chocolate Everywhere!

Written By: Renee Gosselin, MS MBA RD
Nutrition Instructor



This weekend I spent the weekend in Hersey, PA which is the home of you guessed it Hersey Chocolates. While I was there, I got to make a stop and make my own chocolate bar. I found this fun and interesting along with the great information they provided. The instructor provided information on how chocolate is made and also the origins of the seed used to make this. Yes, you heard right it is actually a seed used not a bean as we may think!   

Here are just some fun points I learned while on this trip: 

·         Cacao Tree – where cocao “bean” is grown
·         The only insect really interested in pollination of this pod is midges – gnat-like insects
·       Cocoa bean – oval pod that contains the “bean”
·         Cocoa beans differ in taste dependent on where the tree is found
·         Cocoa beans have to be opened with a machete
·         One pod normally contains about 20-50 beans “seeds”
·         Cocoa nib- are the directly roasted nib – these are bitter and nutty 


·         The fat taken away from cacao beans is known as cocoa butter
·         White chocolate is the cocoa butter with absence of cocoa liquor
·         The FDA regulated that to be called white chocolate there must be a minimum of 20% cocoa butter

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