There is an old legend; a myth passed down from the great civilization of the Mayans that says the Gods gave cacao beans to the people. They wrote about cacao and portrayed it as “the food of the Gods” and were up front about their love for these beans. They worshiped cacao in the way of fire, dancing and praying to a higher being. These people breathed, ate, slept and lived for cacao. They carved the silhouette of the cacao pod onto their stone templates, their paintings were full of people drinking it, they hired artists to decorate special cacao drinking cups, they placed those same drinking vessels in tombs of the dead, they even used the beans during human sacrifice and grew these cacao trees in their gardens!

From the very beginning cacao has been praised starting with The Olmecs who were the first people recorded to process and eat cacao beans. Then next it was the Mayans who thought there was nothing better on the earth than cacao and like the Aztecs and many other Mesoamericans they used this plant to create a holy elixir, used it as a currency and highly idolized it. They are the ones who paved the road that lead chocolate to what it is today.

The origin of cacao beans is they are the seeds of the Theobroma tree that grows in South America. Unlike the typical processing of this bean to create what chocolate is in our age and time, raw cacao is produced differently similar to the way of our ancestors that leaves all health benefits still intact. Raw cacao or chocolate contains a number of healthy aids and is made up of natural antioxidant compounds. It really must be from the Gods if we can indulge in something so tasty and it still is able to be a medicine to our body.

One of the most amazing qualities of cacao is its antioxidants content that benefits the cardiovascular system and keeps your body healthy as a whole. Some of those antioxidants are epichatehins, chatechins, resveratrol and procyanidins. Cacao, out of every single food in the world, has the highest percentage of antioxidants. Now can you say that’s a SUPERFOOD!

Some of the things that these antioxidants do for your body is gives you neurotransmitters (anandamide and serotonin) responsible for the emotions of "bliss" and “love”, gives you dopamine which promotes motivation and pleasure, they pump your body full of compounds that prevents stress and they have many anti-tumor properties.

Cacao is nutrient dense and made up of compounds to provide longevity in humans. Raw chocolate because of how many nutrients it has makes it truly beneficial to every part of the body! Yet again it holds another record and that’s for having the highest source of magnesium and chromium out of any food! Cacao because of magnesium and other phytochemicals it’s loaded with can balance blood pressure, lower high cholesterol, make arterial plaque disappear and get you on the road to general health by reversing heart disease.

Fun Facts:

-One of the world's oldest human beings to have ever lived was Jeanne Louise Calment of France. She lived to be 122 and many say that one of her secrets to longevity was her consumption of 2.5 pounds of bitter dark chocolate a week.

There is a reason that raw chocolate has been loved and cherished for ages. It’s because of it’s amazing flavor, it’s use as a medicine for a healthy life and it’s ability to put us in a state of euphoric happiness which is not just our imaginations because it really does have compounds that does that to us! Who knows, may be it did come from the Gods.

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