Last week we talked about peanuts and peanut butter. Today another delicacy that is a favorite of many. I’m sure some people out there will be allergic to it and of course diabetics have to be careful about their intake of it, but that aside I don’t think there are too many people who don’t like ….
In fact when you think about it, it plays a big part in our lives right from early childhood to adulthood.
Christmas, birthdays, St Valentines, anniversaries, any and all occasions are appropriate for the gift of a nice box of chocolates. Any day with a ‘Y’ in it really!
And it is so versatile – think candies, chocolate bars, chocolate cake, chocolate milk, chocolate syrup, chocolate ice cream, chocolate chip cookies, hot chocolate drinks, a nice cup of café mocha even.
But enough of that, I’ve made myself hungry and thirsty. Here are the forty-one facts about chocolate that you probably didn’t know.
Enjoy.
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American and Russian space flights have always included chocolate.
One ounce of chocolate has about 20 mg of caffeine in it. A one ounce milk chocolate bar has 6 mg of caffeine.
In Belgium, 172,000 tons of chocolate are produced in a year
Belgian chocolates
In 1657, the first chocolate house was opened in London, England. The cost of chocolate was about 13 shillings per pound and was a drink that only the elite enjoyed
Americans collectively eat one hundred pounds of chocolate every second
Adolf Hitler loved chocolate cake
There are some types of chocolates that are actually good for the arteries and heart. Eating chocolate three times a month helps people live longer as opposed to people who overeat chocolate or do not eat chocolate at all
Chocolate maker Cadbury (now part of the Kraft organization) uses more than sixty thousand tonnes of cocoa each year, in the United Kingdom alone
Approximately 71% of American chocolate eaters prefer to eat milk chocolate
The Snickers chocolate bar was invented in 1930
The country with the highest consumption of chocolate per capita is Switzerland, with 22 pounds per person, per year
The chocolate chip cookie was invented in 1933
A single chocolate chip gives enough energy to a human being to walk 150 feet
The rarest chocolate bar in the world is the Porcelana bar. There are only 20,000 of these bars produced a year, and they sell for $90 per pound
Over $7 billion a year is spent on chocolates by consumers
Kit Kat chocolate bar was introduced to the market in 1935. It is said to have been the most popular chocolate bar in the United Kingdom for the last 15 years.
The amount of Kit Kat chocolate bars that are made at the York factory every 15 minutes are enough to outstack the Eiffel Tower
Milk chocolate was invented in Switzerland by David Peter in 1876
The triangular shape that Toblerone chocolates are packaged in, is protected by law
Consuming chocolate was once considered a sin during the 16th and 17th century. During that time it was provided in the form of a drink and since drinking wine during lent was a sin, so was drinking chocolate
The best selling chocolate syrup in the world is Hershey
Chocolate was used as medicine during the 18th century. It was believed that chocolate could cure a stomach ache
During the Easter season, 600 million Marshmallow Peeps are bought my Americans. The Marshmallow Peep is the most popular Easter candy besides chocolate
40 percent of the almonds in the world are used by manufacturers of chocolate
For people that are lactose intolerant, chocolate aids in helping milk digest easier
The popular chocolate bar “Three Musketeers” got its name because when it was first introduced in 1932 there were three individual bars. The flavours were strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla
In the movie Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock, chocolate syrup was used for blood in the shower scene
In China, people eat a bar of chocolate for every 1,000 chocolate bars eaten by the British
In Spain, it is common to pour chocolate milk or cafe au lait on cereal for breakfast
The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
Chocolate can kill dogs; it directly affects their heart and nervous system.
Parrots cannot eat chocolate because it is poisonous to their body
The average chocolate bar has 8 insects’ legs in it.
The most popular gift that teachers receive in the United States from their students is chocolate
In October 1973, Swedish sweet maker Roland Ohisson of Falkenberg was buried in a coffin made of nothing but chocolate
In the United States, approximately seven billion pounds of chocolate and candy are manufactured each year
During World War II, Kit Kat was unavailable due to milk shortages, so the chocolate bar was made without milk
Singer Chaka Khan came out with a line of chocolates called “Chakalates.”
Chocolate accounts for less than two percent of the fat in the American diet
Contrary to popular beliefs, chocolate does not cause acne
Sex is biochemically no different from eating large quantities of chocolate.
A lot of idiots kill themselves accidently. I’ve highlighted a few examples on this blog of people whose stupidity led to their demise.
But some do it on purpose.
If they are really dumb, however, they don’t quite manage to do it the way they had planned.
Here are some examples.
1. Objective Attained – Method Unexpected
Frenchman Jacques LeFevrier left nothing to chance when he decided to commit suicide.
He stood at the top of a tall cliff and tied a noose around his neck.
He tied the other end of the rope to a large rock.
He then drank some poison.
Then he set fire to his clothes.
He even tried to shoot himself at the last moment.
The plan seemed foolproof. Alas it was not.
As he jumped he fired the pistol.
However, the bullet missed him completely and instead cut through the rope above him.
Free of the threat of hanging, he plunged into the sea.
The sudden dunking extinguished the flames and the salty water he ingested made him vomit the poison.
He was dragged out of the water by a kind fisherman and was taken to a hospital, where he subsequently died of hypothermia.
There must have been an easier way.
Jacques LeFevrier
2. Strike another one Elvita!
One Sunday while on a visit to the Empire State Building in New York City, Elvita Adams clambered over an 8 foot high iron fence surrounding the observation deck at about 8.25pm.
She jumped off the building and plummeted earthwards.
But only for a few feet.
A strong gust of wind, possibly as high as 30mph, pushed her back towards the building and she landed on a balcony on the 85th floor, with nothing more than a broken leg.
Asked why she had wanted to commit suicide she said it was because she had been a failure at everything she tried.
Strike another one Elvita!
Empire State Building
3. She Fell For Him Big Time
Back in France again, suicides at the Eiffel Tower are apparently quite common. In fact France has one of the highest suicide rates at 17.5 suicides per 1000 people!
Killing yourself with the 1,063 foot “Iron Lady” is the third most popular French suicide method behind poisoning and hanging (both of which the guy in the first incident tried unsuccessfully).
A few times, people have attempted to kill themselves but failed to do so. One man was blown onto a rafter by the wind and he was spared. But the most curious case was one in which a woman who jumped, landed on the roof of a car and later married the man who owned it!
Boy did she fall for him!!!
Eiffel Tower, Paris
4. Taxi!
In Buenos Aires, Argentina, a woman threw herself off the 23rd floor balcony of the Hotel Crown Plaza Panamericano in an apparent suicide bid. However her attempt failed when a taxi caught in traffic below cushioned her fall.
Although the impact of her landing on the car shattered its windscreen and made a huge dent in its roof, the impact was not hard enough to end her life.
Instead, the 30-year-old woman was left with broken hips, ribs and significant internal bleeding.
The driver of the taxi, Miguel Cajal, told a local TV station that he noticed policemen stopping traffic and were looking upward. This made him instinctively jump out of his car.
“I got out of the car a second before. If I had not got out, I would have been killed,” the BBC quoted him as saying. The impact, he added, “made a terrible noise.”
The aftermath of a suicidal woman landing on a taxi
fasab 