Chocolate — I can't live without it! What's all the fuss about chocolate? Why do so many people — particularly women — crave it so? Let us delve into the history of the confection for a few answers. Chocolate's delectable history Chocolate is made from the seeds of the tropical cacao tree, theobroma cacao, literally "food of the gods". Chocolate has also been called the food of the devil (perhaps by those who found they couldn't live without it!). We are indebted to the Aztecs for the discovery of cacao beans's uses. It was they who used the beans to formulate a hot, frothy beverage called chocolatl from the beans for the exclusive use of warriors, nobility and priests. The Aztecs esteemed its reputed ability to confer wisdom and vitality. Taken fermented as a drink, chocolatl was also used in religious ceremonies. This sacred drink was associated with Xochiquetzal, the goddess of fertility. Emperor Montezuma was reported to have drank up to 50 cups of chocolate a day! Aztec Tax Table # Beans Purchasing Power 100 One slave 12 One courtesan Is Chocolate good for you? A recent article at CNN's web site cites a study which showed that a "...New and yet-to-be-published studies are showing that antioxidants in chocolate — dark chocolate and cocoa powder — may increase "good" (HDL) cholesterol levels by as much as 10 percent, says Penny Kris-Etherton, Ph.D., a registered dietitian at Pennsylvania State University. In the studies, subjects ate 22 grams of cocoa powder and 16 grams of dark chocolate every day (one Hershey bar contains 45 grams of cocoa powder). The result: Their "bad" (LDL) cholesterol was less susceptible to oxidation, a process that normally leads to artery-clogging plaques. While many people take vitamins and other antioxidants to help prevent plaque development, the study shows that cocoa could do the trick." Chocolate: I must have it!! Is addiction to chocolate fact or fiction? Do our bodies crave it or just our minds? Some researchers, after analyzing milk and cocoa, found substances that mimic the effects of marijuana, but in levels too small to have any psychoactive effects. However, in their report in the journal Nature, the research team recommend further studies "before the relevance of these compounds to the purported mild rewarding and craving-inducing effects of cocoa can be dismissed." Chocolate remains, in the words of one researcher, 'more than a food but less than a drug,'

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