Chocolate is a delicious confection popular among humans, both male and female. Not only is it very tasty, it is a good source of antioxidants and some minerals, particularly copper and magnesium. The darker the chocolate it is (i.e. the higher the percentage of cacao), the larger the antioxidant and mineral punch it packs. As Magnesium is particularly essential to proper brain and heart function and is generally lacking in the diets of North Americans, dark chocolate is emerging as a popular health food, though its value and quality are diminished by the sugar and fat that typically accompanies it. All chocolate commercially prepared contains soy lecithin, making it allergenic to those with soy allergies.

Sources

Much more relevant to Davis, where can you get this delicious ambrosia.

A Theobroma Cacao tree grows fruit near Tabatha the Titan, the corpse flower. Please obtain permission before harvesting.

Specializing in pure chocolate desserts and fudge, baking chocolate is also sold here.

Serving mainly desserts.

Both chocolate for baking and snacking. Includes Fair Trade, vegan, organic, and conventional options.

Davis' first and only Raw, Organic, Fair Trade, Alternatively Sweetened, and Local Chocolate Company.

Mainly selling the snacking variety of chocolate.

Selling both a selection of baking and snacking chocolates as well as desserts made from the ambrosia.

Selling only dark chocolate bars, with either marshmallows or almonds.

Available at the farmer's market, the last Saturday of every month, also ordered from their website.

Trivia

  • The cacao tree was discovered somewhere around 2000 years ago in Mesoamerica by the Maya.
  • The botanical name of the cacao tree is Theobroma cacao, which translates to be the "Food of the Gods".
  • Chocolate bars were not developed until the 1800s. Up until that point, chocolate was consumed as a beverage.
    • This beverage was made with hot water frothing a liquid chocolate made from refined powder, it was pretty spicy having chili in it, additionally, it often contained hallucinogenics such as psilocybin mushrooms.
  • The first Valentine's candy box was introduced by Richard Cadbury in 1868.
  • White chocolate contains no cacao at all.
    • I believe true white choc contains cacao butter. Rather than get into a debate about whether cacao butter=cacao, perhaps the original poster can clarify his/her statement. —AlphaDog
    • White chocolate is pure cacao butter, but doesn't contain much of the theobromide or lighter substances that are found in darker varieties, people who are allergic to chocolate will sadly also be allergic to white chocolate just the same.
  • Theobromide in chocolate is toxic to to both people and dogs. The concentration of this substance is relative to the darkness of the chocolate, and dogs generally weigh much less than a human, so avoid feeding dogs chocolate, especially the delicious darks found in many local stores. Depending on your dog's weight, it might be able to ingest quite a bit without worry, so don't faint if a lab eats a single chocolate chip cookie. It's not a good idea to intentionally feed it to them, but an incidental amount now and then is usually okay. According to the Merck Veterinary Manual, LD50 for dogs is approximately one ounce of milk chocolate per pound of dog, or 1/16 of their body weight. For an 80 pound dog, that's 5 pounds of chocolate. For a 176 pound human at the human LD50, it's about 13.5 pounds of chocolate. That's a lot of chocolate.
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