There is no evidence that cacao was being cultivated in South America 3000 years ago. There is evidence of the use of cocoa beans to make beverages in Mesoamerica at least as far back as 1900BC and because cacao is not native to Mesoamerica it is assumed that it was cultivated. (In South America, the pulp was used to make alcoholic beverages and there is evidence that the seeds were consumed.)-) There is no legal definition for "dark" chocolate. There is a minimum cacao content for "sweet" chocolate (which covers both semi-sweet and bittersweet). Conventionally, dark chocolate is any chocolate that does not contain any dairy products. However, this definition is not entirely useful as the FDA standards of identity for even chocolate liquor allow manufacturers to include dairy fats in their recipes. A workable definition of dark chocolate is a chocolate that does not contain any dairy ingredients and you have to read the ingredients label to figure it out because there is nothing in the standards of identity or labeling laws that covers the use of the word "dark" when it is applied to chocolate. Ironically, there is a standard of identity for white chocolate, so legally (anyway, in the US) white chocolate is really chocolate.-) If your readership understands what is meant by "... which are polymeric condensation products ..." then it is an unusual group of readers. If not, you might want to consider either defining what this means or changing the phrase.-) I don't know of any manufacturers who say, "Let's remove the polyphenols in the chocolate to make it less bitter." Instead, they use various practices to remove bitterness, the result of which processes is the reduction of the level of polyphenols (and other chemicals).-) There is no absolute measurement for the caloric content of 40 grams of chocolate or the percentage of those calories that come from fat, and the inclusion of the word "fine" is a little confusing. Calorie content is not dependent on processing, it's dependent on the makeup of the chocolate. 40 grams of a "fine" 100% cocoa content bar is going to have a different fat/calorie ratio than a 72% bar. In fact, there will be variations in 72% bars depending on the total fat content.-) You are right, there is no RDA for chocolate and there probably never will be. If there is a bit of advice I would offer it is that chocolate (and cocoa products) made using "natural" (non-alkalized or non Dutch processed) cocoa tend to be much higher in antioxidants than chocolate products made with alkalized cocoa. Although cocoa butter tends to be neutral in people with "normal" cholesterol metabolism, choosing cocoa products that are also low-fat (such as cocoa powder) is an alternative to consider. Thus, if one is interested in maximizing the potential wellness benefits from cacao, finding ways to incorporate low-fat, non-alkalized cocoa powder into the diet is one way to go. I am satisfied based on my reading that cocoa butter is in part responsible for the regulation of the ratios of LDL/HDL/triglycerides so some cocoa butter in the diet is a good thing. How much? Who knows? The health aspects of eating chocolate are a bonus, not a reason, to eat chocolate.-) One of the reasons that the double-blind study you're suggesting might not ever happen is that whoever organizes it will need to completely characterize the chemical makeup of the chocolate(s) being used for the study - which hasn't been done until now. Then, someone would need to find correlations between the chemical makeup and the results. So, it probably shouldn't be a placebo that gets used, but several chocolates with precisely known, but different chemical makeups in an attempt to understand (if possible) which aspects of chocolate's chemistry contribute to which benefits.
Langdon:
I wasn't arguing the amount or intensity of the flavor of a cocoa butter, just that cocoa butter has flavor. I agree that the affect adding a deodorized cocoa butter has on the flavor of a chocolate depends on how "flavorful" the chocolate was to begin with and how much cocoa butter gets added.
You are right, few origin chocolate bars contain undeodorized cocoa butter made from the same beans as the liquor. The only origin chocolate maker in the US that I know of that has a butter press is Askinosie.
FWIW, it's my opinion that in order to be truly called a "single" origin chocolate it's necessary to use butter from beans of the same origin (deodorized or no), not butter from an unknown source. If the chocolate maker is making a single-plantation bar, then the butter needs to be from beans from the same plantation, not the same region or country, in order to be a "true" "single-origin."
:: Clay
Langdon:
Technically true, Minifie et al and the USDA refer to the edible fat component. However,I am not aware of any commercially available cocoa butter that is not "contaminated" (in the sense that you use the word) by at least some amount of volatile aromatics. I was making the point with references to Lowe's impression that adding cocoa butter muted the flavor of chocolate - I was pointing out that cocoa butter does have flavor. I may not have chosen the clearest way to express that thought.
:: Clay
GM -
