They say you are what you eat.   Care to join the Cwazy Cacao Cocoa Club?  Is there a difference?  Where does chocolate come from?  We’ve featured a lot of the divine stuff on our site, but it’s kind of cool to learn how our indulgent treat is made.

A pod from the Theobroma cacao has tiny beans insde.

This is a cacao bean pod from the theobroma cacao tree, which is a small tree (not very tall) with big leaves.  It’s about the size of a small football.  Once the many many beans inside are processed (and here, unfortunately, much of the nutritional elements of the cacao is lost in translation) then it turns into cocoa.  When the cocoa powder is mixed with milk, it becomes chocolate.

Le Grand Finale - the Final, artful product

But then, you can also argue that cacao and cocoa are Aztek vs English for the same  fruit from the Theobroma cacao tree.  You know.. TOMAYTO  TOMAHTO.

These nowadays, some chocolatiers like to emphasize (and rightly so) that their cacao is grown by farmers who benefit from the fruits of their labor.  Fair trade farmers are paid decent wages by socially conscious choco-manufacturers.  This is a good thing.  This goes for coffee beans too..but let’s not go there yet cuz I can get crazy caffeinated cooking up a coffee with cocoa and cacao story here.

The good thing is that there are benefits to eating the right kind of chocolate in it’s final form.  And in moderation, you can indulge every now and then.

Cuz you’re worth it.  Crazy worth it.

Class dismissed!