The first fact about chocolate that everyone knows is that it is delicious! Seriously, Easter has come and gone, but that still doesn’t curb the craving for chocolate. If anything, the craving is intensified because of Easter and the availability of chocolate during Easter. Here are 13 useless, but extremely interesting facts about everybody’s favorite confection that you probably don’t know.
1. Americans eat a lot of chocolate:
To be a little bit more precise, Americans eat roughly 100 pounds of chocolate each second! As shocking as that may seem, the people in Switzerland, Ireland, Germany and England actually eat more than that.
2. It takes a while for cacao trees to produce the beans for chocolate:
Cacao trees produce the beans that chocolate is made from. These beans are not produced until the tree is 3 or 4 years old. On the bright side, cacao trees can live for 200 years!
3. The Snickers bar was named after a horse:
Frank C. Mars actually invented the Snickers bar and named it after his favorite horse.
4. The Snickers wasn’t the Snickers bar everywhere:
In Ireland and England, up until 1990, the Snickers bar that we know and love here in America was called the Marathon bar.
5. Americans buy a lot of chocolate before Easter:
During the week before Easter, Americans buy about 71 million pounds of chocolate. For those keeping score, that’s actually more chocolate than is purchased the week before Valentine’s Day (which is about 48 million pounds). The week before Halloween is the winner with 90 million pounds!
6. Hershey’s Kisses were once wrapped by hand:
From their creation in 1907 to 1921, all of the Hershey’s kisses were wrapped individually, by hand.
7. Bleeding chocolate?
The horror film Psycho was, of course, filmed in black & white. For that reason, Bosco chocolate syrup was used for fake blood in the movie.
8. Canada had a chocolate bar strike:
There was actually a strike in Canada in 1947. Children were outraged when the price of candy bars rose from 5 cents to 8 cents. Children were actually picketing on the streets. Don’t mess with the chocolate, man!
9. Chocolate may be good for the memory:
A study in 2014 found that adults between 50 and 69 years of age actually scored better on a memory test after drinking a cup of cocoa every day for 3 months. This benefit can’t be proven, but boy would it be great if chocolate were good for you!
10. Baptism by chocolate:
The ancient Maya would baptize babies with a mixture of ground cocoa and flour.
11. Chocolate in Space:
Since 1981, M&M’s have gone to space about 130 times. It turns out that they are perfect in shape, size and durability for space travel.
12. Password for Chocolate:
A study done in 2004 found that 70% of people would actually give up their computer password for chocolate. (That is actually a tempting offer!)
13. Chocolate is not so good for dogs:
The theobromine in chocolate is why dogs shouldn’t eat it. Theobromine causes the chocolate to be metabolized much too slowly in a dog’s body.
Once again, these facts are really interesting – but probably totally useless. Although, they may be good for dazzling friends at parties! Now, I’m going to go ponder that password offer…