Weird and wonderful fun facts about Chocolate
After carrying out some research around Belgian chocolate for our recent blog post we stumbled across some weird but of course wonderful (because it's to do with chocolate) facts! Here at Choc on Choc, we think that it is absolutely imperative that we share them with you!
Number 1: Apparently Europeans really do love chocolate!
The International Cocoa Organisation claims that European’s consume over half the worlds chocolate alone! With Brits, Germans and Swiss eat at least 11kg each per year! Woah!
Number 2: The chocolate chip cookie was invented by accident!
Back in 1930, Ruth Wakefield came to a devastating realisation that she had run out baker’s chocolate so decided to chuck in some of her Nestle chocolate into her cookie dough, expecting it to melt in and create chocolate cookies but low and behold the chocolate chip cookie was born! Even better Ruth then sold the idea to Nestle in exchange for a lifetime supply of chocolate!
Number 3: So, the people of the world LOVE Toblerone’s.
So many Toblerone’s are sold each year that if you lay them flat down, they would go around the whole of the Earth’s circumference, 62,000km!
Number 4: White chocolate isn’t real chocolate?!
What is this madness? Well, technically for the chocolate to be classed as ‘chocolate’ it has to contain cocoa solids or cocoa liquor! However, White chocolate contains cocoa butter instead!
Number 5: Chocolate was once used as money!
All the way back in Mayan times the cocoa bean was used as actual currency as it was thought that the cocoa beans were far more valuable than gold dust! This resulted in the restriction of farming and cultivation of the beans so that they wouldn’t devalue. Personally, we’re glad it’s not currency any more, we’d eat it all and never have any money!
Number 6: Chocolate has over 600 flavour compounds!
We’ve all had weird and whacky flavoured chocolate but did you know there are over 600 flavour compounds you can mix together. Let’s try put this into some perspective, red wine only has 200 in comparison!
Number 7: Chocolate milk was invented in…. Jamaica??? Who would have guessed?!
Research conducted by the Natural History Museum found that a Jamaica botanist Sir Hans Solane invented chocolate milk because he couldn’t stomach the drink without added milk.
Number 8: Stats show that you’re more likely to buy something from a store that smells like chocolate.
Science stats show that customers are more likely to purchase goods when there is a scent of chocolate in the air! The journal of environmental psychology has assumed that this is because of its soothing qualities.
Number 9: More than two-thirds of the world’s cocoa is grown in Africa.
The World Cocoa Foundation has reported that most of the world cocoa comes from Africa, with over 40% coming from the Ivory Coast alone!
Number 10: Snickers is actually a horse!
Don’t worry there’s no horse in your snickers, which is slightly surprising in itself these days! But instead, the Mars family named it after their beloved horse ‘Snickers’.
Share some of these fun facts with your friends and family and make chocolate even more fun for everyone!
