Thanksgiving is just around the corner and we’re of course thinking about candy.
True, it’s not really a candy holiday (there’s not a lot of talk about “Thanksgiving candy” the way there is about Easter or Halloween candy), but it’s a time to remember what we’re grateful for, and today we’re giving thanks for chocolate.
And it’s not just because chocolate pays the bills around here. We’d like to think we’d be grateful for chocolate even if it wasn’t our livelihood.
In this blog post, we’d like to share some of things that makes our favorite food so great.
1. It’s good for you
Study after study has uncovered different health benefits that come from eating chocolate. Some of these benefits include:
- Researchers at the University of Copenhagen found that dark chocolate fills people up, causing them to eat less, and can even curb cravings for sugary or fatty foods.
- It can reduce the risk of heart disease, according to a study at Cambridge University.
- A study in Germany found that the flavanols found in dark chocolate protects your skin against sun damage and helps it stay hydrated.
- According to the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the cocoa in dark chocolate has blood thinning properties like you’d find in aspirin.
So the next time you feel guilty about eating chocolate, relax: it might actually help you live longer. And besides…
2. We’re programmed to like chocolate
The sweetness, acidity and aromas in chocolate all join together to create a unique chemical combination that our brains can’t help but enjoy.
Inside chocolate you’ll find chemicals like anandamide, a neurotransmitter that stimulates the brain the way cannabis does. There are also traces of caffeine and theobromine, well-known stimulants.
But it’s not just these chemicals that cause us to enjoy chocolate. When you put a piece of chocolate in your mouth and it begins to melt, the touch receptors in your tongue senses this change, which stimulates the pleasure center in our brain.
3. It’s got a colorful history
We love chocolate not just for its rich taste, but for its rich history. Spend enough time doing research and you’ll uncover interesting facts like these:
The accidental treat
Perhaps the most beloved cookie in creation, the chocolate chip, came about accidentally when a baker named Ruth Wakefield realized she was out of baking chocolate and mixed in a piece of Nestle’s chocolate, thinking that she’d just make chocolate-flavored cookies.
Instead, she invented the chocolate chip cookie and sold the recipe to Nestle’s in exchange for a lifetime supply of chocolate.
German chocolate cake…from America
Despite its name, German chocolate cake is an American creation…by a baker named Sam German, who came up with a new style of baking sweet chocolate in 1852.
The Baker’s chocolate company, German’s employer, named the cake after him, but it didn’t become famous until the 1950s, when a newspaper in Texas published the recipe for “German’s Chocolate Cake.” Somewhere along the line, the cake’s name lost its apostrophe.
The Canadian candy strike
In 1947, a group of kids in Canada brought the country’s candy industry to a standstill, with sales dropping by 80 percent in a few days. How? By going on strike.
It all started in the town of Ladysmith, where kids began to protest their local candy shop after it raised its prices on chocolate bars from five cents to eight cents.
When the protest made the news, kids all over Canada joined in. They were planning a march on Toronto when a newspaper accused the kids of being communist dupes, and their parents shut the protest down.
Years later, the kids were interviewed in a documentary and said that their motives weren’t political: they just wanted to spend less on chocolate.
Thanksgiving candy from Skip’s
We said earlier that Thanksgiving isn’t a big candy holiday in the same vein as Easter or Halloween. But that doesn’t mean Thanksgiving candy doesn’t exist. You’ll find a pretty wide selection here at Skip’s Candies, with an assortment of delicious chocolate treats from both the milk and dark families.
And because we’re concerned about customers – or customers’ loved ones – with nut allergies, we sell nut-free chocolate and operate a dedicated nut-free facility.
Contact us today to learn more about our selection. And thank you to our loyal customers. We may be grateful for chocolate, but we’re much more thankful for you.