Carla Martin

And it is considerably sweeter than what people would have consumed historically to the point where sometimes when you're eating a bar of chocolate, you're getting about a 50, 60% sugar hit.

And then only the rest of that percentage is actually something that might come from the cocoa tree.

It's a fascinating history, and it's one that also has long historical links.

It wasn't uncommon for Indigenous people in Mesoamerica to use these sort of rustic chocolate discs when they went on the battlefield as warriors so many centuries ago.

That was also the case during the American Revolution and the Civil War.

Troops were given chocolate as something to kind of combat hunger.

It contains theobromine and caffeine, which are both stimulants.

We associate them with a sense of well-being.

And so it would be given to people as a way of trying to boost their energy in difficult physical moments on the battlefield.

Then, of course, the Hershey Company competed for contracts with the US Department of Defense.

beginning in the 1900s around World War I, around World War II, where they were creating very nutritious, fortified chocolate bars that could be given to troops.

My understanding is that these were given to troops prior to D-Day and to other major battles.

And so this has remained a significant source of nutrition in key moments in military history in the United States.

It's interesting.

When it comes to food, we as people are the ones who make meaning out of it.

So there is a long history of cocoa and chocolate at times being seen as well accepted in society and at other times not as well accepted.

For example, in the early European encounters with cocoa and chocolate, the Catholic Church, which has a long history of kind of ambivalence toward ideas of outright romance or sexuality, was debating whether or not people could consume chocolate on holy days and still be considered to be fasting.

Of course, the Catholic Church also celebrates a number of people known as Saint Valentine.

And so there is that connection toward Valentine's Day historically and the idea of aphrodisiac foods.

Chocolate came to be one of them, likely because of this historical connection with romance that goes all the way back to Indigenous tradition.