CHOCOLATE
Last year Americans bought over 3 billion pounds of candy; over 55% of it was chocolate. Over 85% of the cocoa consumed in this country is in the form of candy.
Chocolate comes from the cacao tree, a small , beautiful tree indigenous to the tropical regions of the world. Cacao beans are produced in pods from 6-10 inches long when mature, varying in color from green through reds and yellows. Each pod contains 25 - 50 beans. The average tree bears all year long but yields about 2 pounds of dried beans per year. The pod has a white pulp which is delicious to the taste, but the seeds are bitter and astringent. It is from the seeds that chocolate is made.
A booklet published by the U.S. Department of Health, Education and well fare called "The Food Defect Action Levels" lists the defect levels in chocolate in the form of "insect, rodent, and other natural contaminants" that are allowable by the PDA. Cocoa beans are "permitted to contain an average of 75 microscopic insect fragments per 50 gm. and an average of 2 rodent hairs per 50 gm. (50 gm is approximately 3 tablespoons). Animal excreta must not exceed 10 milligrams per pound. Many individuals who believe themselves to be allergic to chocolate are in fact allergic to the animal parts in the chocolate.
Because of chocolate's high fat content, it can act as a carrier of salmonel a bacteria which is a type of food poisoning characterized by nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. Also brand-name chocolate candy bars come contaminated with carcinogenic weed killers and wood preservatives. Traces of these and other dangerous substances were found by the independent testing laboratories of WARF Institute in five brands of top-selling candy bars (although the E.P.A. safety levels supposedly do not permit any of these to be present).
Chocolate contains Theobromine, Theophylline and Caffeine, with the principal one being Theobromine which can cause abnormal gland growth, central nervous system stimulation, sleeplessness, depression and anxiety. Theobromine salts are known to cause upset stomach, flushing of the skin with a warm sensation and itching. Theophylline can cause irritation of the stomach, with discomfort, nausea and vomiting, as well as stimulation of the central nervous system. Caffeine is classified by the pharmacology tests as a "central nervous system stimulant". A fatal dose of caffeine is 10 grams, the amount in about 70 cups of coffee.
Would you use chocolate, drink coffee, colas, etc. or use caffeine containing products (see chart) if you knew they were going to slow you down? Anything with caffeine in it is considered a stimulant. If you use stimulants, keep this basic concept in mind: what goes up must come down. The person who has to rely on products containing caffeine has created a seesaw existence which finds him on top of a mountain or down in a valley, with fatigue as his constant companion. Stimulants, such as caffeine, give us energy without giving us adequate fuel. Stimulants increase nearly all vital body functions. Chocolate is very harmful to one's body and can cause a long list of health problems. Listed below are some of these problems:
CHOCOLATE VERSUS CAROB
Nutritional y, carob is everything that chocolate is not. Gram for gram, carob contains three times the calcium that milk does. It is high in phosphorus and potassium, plus it contains some sodium and iron. Carob is rich in protein and high in natural carbohydrates. Although very sweet, it is 60 percent lower in calories than chocolate. While chocolate is a robber of nutrients, carob is a replenisher. Carob has as much thiamine (Bl) as asparagus or strawberries, as much niacin (B3) as lima beans, lentils or peas, and more vitamin A than eggplant or asparagus. As an added bonus, it has 46 percent natural sugar, where cocoa has only 5 1/2 percent. Carob is low in fat whereas chocolate is high in fat. Carob contains no caffeine or other stimulants, and best of all contains no insect fragments.
Where does carob come from? It comes from the carob tree, a beautiful evergreen tree rounded in form, with somewhat oval-shaped glossy leaves. The carob tree stands as tall as 50 feet when full grown. The pods are flat like lima beans and measure from 3 to 12 inches in length. They are rich dark brown in color. The pods contain 5-15 seeds which are discarded.
(1) Journal of the Association of Official Analytical Chemists 62(5): 1076-6, Sept. 1979
(2) Science News 127:173, 199, 327, 1985
(3) American Journal of Psychiatry 135:963, August, 1978
(4) Medical World News, March 1979