DEATH BY CHOCOLATE

That’s just the name of one of those over-the-top brownie desserts, not a real thing. Because chocolate is good medicine.

Well, we’re not sure about that, and you haven’t even read this chapter yet. But let’s just all try to stay positive, okay? How could such a wonderful thing as chocolate not have marvelous healing powers? It just makes sense.

Are you familiar with The Secret? You know, the Laws of Attraction? Like attracts like? Put simply, the idea is that the universe will deliver anything to you provided you just visualize it hard enough. So let’s all start putting it out into the universe now that chocolate is medicine, okay? Because we really, really need chocolate to be medicine. You hear that, Universe? Chocolate is medicine.

Please keep repeating this mantra as you read, we’re not sure how close attention the universe is paying (judging by recent evidence, the answer is not particularly).

FOOD OF THE GODS

Let’s begin with the history of chocolate itself. No, it’s not technically medicine, but we’ve been writing about a lot of blood and poop and stuff—just give us this brief reprieve, okay?

Humanity has been brewing up fermented chocolate beverages since around at least 1400 BCE when people in Mesoamerica first domesticated the cacao tree and began making drinks from its fermented beans. Mayans thought the drink had a connection to the gods. By 1400 CE, Aztecs were using the beans as currency.

In these early American cultures, it was a precious drink, reserved for people of stature. Montezuma would consume it before sex to give him energy and stamina (kinda puts that Whitman’s Sampler you got your Aunt Becky last Valentine’s Day in a weird light, huh?)

People considered it a strengthening drink, full of healthy properties, and of such raw power that it was unsuitable for women and children. Sure, drinking too much could make you deranged, but in moderation, it was thought to be invigorating. You know, like Gatorade.

Chocolate wasn’t just considered to be an aphrodisiac, not by a long shot. It was also used as a treatment for angina, dysentery, dental problems, indigestion, constipation, fatigue, hemorrhoids, and kidney disease.

Christopher Columbus encountered cacao beans during one of his trips to the Americas, although he referred to them as “almonds,” in case you need another reason to think that cat was a total ding-dong.

Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés might have been the first European to encounter chocolate itself, but it’s unclear who actually brought chocolate to Europe. Regardless, by the 16th century, it was a hot commodity all across the continent.

FUDGE YOUR PRESCRIPTION

The predominant system of medicine in Europe at that time was the humoral system.

JUSTIN VS SYDNEE

SYDNEE Let’s have a brief recap of what that means in case you’ve forgotten, or you’re just reading random articles from this book that you picked up from the back of a toilet while attending your neighbor’s housewarming party.

JUSTIN Hey, by the way, light a match on your way out? People live here.

The humoral system was based on the belief that the body contained four titular humors that had to be kept in balance. Have too much of a certain humor? Purge it! Is the old yellow bile tank running a little low? You’ve gotta top it off! In addition to the four humors (blood, black bile, phlegm, and the aforementioned yellow bile) that you had to keep in balance, there was also a belief that everyone had a personal climate of sorts. Babies were hot and humid, young adults hot and dry, adults cold and dry, old people cold and humid. Various food and drink items also had corresponding temperature and humidity as well. In order to restore balance to your system, you just ate or drank something that’s the opposite of whatever you have going on.

In light of this, cocoa was seen as a cool, dry drink to ward off hot and humid conditions. It could also be modified depending on the diagnosis. Alone it could treat the liver, breast issues, or the stomach. Add gum, and it could stop diarrhea.

Okay, wait—stop the book. We’ve talked about a lot of really horrific things in this book, and I’m sure we’re gonna have a few more gems before our time together is through. But can we all agree that none of them will top . . . chocolate gum? Ugh, I just got the yuck chills typing that.

Want more? Just add corn and vanilla to your chocolate to make a paste that was used as an aphrodisiac (we’re assuming it wasn’t applied topically). In addition, chocolate was added to a variety of plants to help skinny people gain some weight. (Note: This would probably work even without the additional plants.)

Sydnee’s Fun Medical Facts

One particularly popular recipe to fix people who were not feeling well, but did not have a fever, was to add sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, cloves, anise, and chili powder to cocoa and serve as a warm drink. The popularity of this cure is not hard to understand. Did I mention you could also add almonds if you wanted to?

USE AS DIRECTED

This view of chocolate as medicine was especially important because European religious groups started denouncing it almost immediately. Chocolate was seen as a substance that could invigorate you and encourage sinful impulses, so the only acceptable reason to use it was if a doctor told you to. In response to this, doctors cleverly expanded its uses to basically everything. It was prescribed as a diuretic and an expectorant, and in a particularly strange and unappetizing recipe, cocoa could be mixed with ground human skull, musk, and ambergris to treat . . . hypochondria. There’s a pretty good chance that one worked, though, right? We’d guess that after one nibble of that little concoction you’d probably never admit to being sick again.

JUSTIN VS SYDNEE

SYDNEE Ambergris is a waxy substance produced in the digestive tract of sperm whales. I probably could have included more about this fascinating substance in our book, but Justin couldn’t stop giggling every time he typed “sperm.”

JUSTIN <snicker>

Word of chocolate’s miraculous healing properties spread across Europe, particularly as a delicious way for the sickly to gain weight, to stimulate the nervous system, and to improve digestion.

In the 16th century, Grand Duke Ferdinando I de’ Medici claimed chocolate was great for flatulence.

By the 17th century, its use had spread even further, and for more conditions. As one 17th century French doctor wrote:

“The use of chocolate is salubrious [for] it excites and strengthens with its warm mild juiciness the bowel’s inborn warmth and strength, it helps digestion, it fosters the spread of food and the secretion of the unnecessary, it accumulates fat, it is not an enemy to the brain, it is Venus’s friend and very suitable for body and soul.”

The preponderance of chocolate being used medically at last led to a showdown over the therapeutic viability of the sweet in Florence, by time of the 18th century.

THE GREAT CHOCOLATE BATTLE

In the early 1700s, Doctor Giovan Battista Felici (who later became known as the Great Chocolate Accuser) stirred up all kinds of trouble, as his nickname might suggest. Felici was certain that cocoa was mislabeled as a cold substance, and was especially hot when you added all the yummy spices to it, as was the fashion.

According to him, this misuse of chocolate could ferment your blood, and it would spoil . . . your . . . blood? It’s hard for us to say exactly—get deep enough into humoral medicine, and you’re basically playing Calvinball.

A brief diversion, if you’ll allow it. If you’re anything like me, you probably aren’t familiar with the Grand Duke Ferdinando I de’ Medici. We trot out trivia about people with fancy titles like that, and it sounds like they were an impressive person. But you’ve probably never read that name until about thirty seconds ago right? No, the only reason you’re (perhaps only fleetingly) aware of Ferdinando I de’ Medici, fifth son of Cosimo I de’ Medici and Eleanor of Toledo, is that one time he said chocolate helps you not fart so much.

That’s all by way of me saying, you know, it’s all really just anybody’s guess, huh?

Chocolate sellers were worried that this negative view of their product by, a learned doctor, no less, could be bad for business. One guy, Francesco Zetti (uncharitably known by his contemporaries as “the Hunchback of Panone” due to a back condition), decided to take action. He commissioned a report in defense of chocolate from an anonymous doctor and published it. This report got a lot of backing from local chocolate producers, and he ended up winning the battle of public opinion. It probably didn’t hurt that chocolate is, of course, delicious.

By the latter years of the 18th century, the war was over, and chocolate was well established as a medicinal beverage, usually served melted and added to milk as a restorative or invigorating drink. It was in such demand that it was suggested that if you couldn’t afford chocolate, you could make a fake by toasting flour and mixing it with sugar and milk.

I don’t know how this tastes, but for the record, I think I saw a participant on Worst Cooks in America try it, and the judges didn’t seem to enjoy it. Seriously, Google it. It happened.

By the 19th century, chocolate had become such a popular health beverage that a British Quaker named John Cadbury started promoting the practice of drinking chocolate as an antidote to drinking booze. While Cadbury might have initially been trying to bolster temperance, which he thought could fix many of society’s ills, it ended up being a pretty good financial decision too. You might have seen his name on a Creme Egg if you’re in the United States, or if you live in the United Kingdom, or most any place chocolate is sold.

So at this point in history, chocolate has become just about the most symbolically loaded and perplexing gift you could get for somebody, right? Are you telling your sweetie you think they drink too much? That they need to fart less? That they need to gain weight? That you think they should get pregnant despite medical professionals agreeing that it’s unlikely to occur? Gifts shouldn’t need to come with fifteen-minute disclaimers; honestly, just go with a nice dish towel. Everybody always needs another one.

Chocolate was also considered a healthier alternative to tea, fattening up sickly kids stuck in factories and providing one with energy, vigor, and robustness. This effect wasn’t just important for children. According to one testimonial, a husband using chocolate to treat a respiratory condition shared a little with his wife, and she was able to get pregnant despite being thought to be infertile.

MELT IN YOUR MOUTH, NOT IN YOUR HAND

The only thing holding chocolate back was really the method of consumption. Chocolate wasn’t shelf-stable, so it couldn’t be stored for long times without going bad. And melting it into milk was kind of cumbersome and time consuming. This all started to change in 1828, when Casparas van Houten, a Dutch chocolate-maker, invented a way to remove fat from cocoa beans. His son Coenraad went one step further, creating a powder that had a sweeter taste and mixed easily with water. Known as “Dutch-process chocolate,” this powder was easier to store and work with. Of course, new forms of chocolate meant new ways of turning it into medicine. “Health chocolates” like “Dr. Day’s Chocolate Tonic Laxative” and “Hauswaldt Vigor Chocolate” began to pop up in the marketplace. Some modern products, like laxative Ex-Lax or calcium supplement Viactiv, have carried on the tradition.

Even chocolate products that were sold for enjoyment and not medicinal benefits were billed as being good for you. The Heath bar was advertised as a health food, using the slogan “Heath for Better Health” because it was made from high-quality ingredients. (Ah the ’30s, when any product that didn’t actively poison consumers got to be a health food.) Milton Hershey also came around this time and changed the face of chocolate in the United States. The old Hershey’s Chocolate ads also used the health benefits as a selling point.

Sydnee’s Fun Medical Facts

Hershey’s did make one product meant only for nutritional purposes. The “D-ration” was a bar created just for the military in the late 1930s. The demands Uncle Sam put on Hershey was that the new bar had to be nutritionally dense (like over 600 calories) and taste “a little better than a boiled potato” but not so good that soldiers would eat it for fun.

Unfortunately, the beautiful lie of chocolate as health food began to die out in the 20th century with the revelation that too much fat and sugar are actually bad for you. This staggering concept was well established by the 1950s, and chocolate was simply marketed for its most obvious advantage: its yumminess.

WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED FROM THIS?

Well, the days of prescribing pure chocolate are, sadly, long gone. While there is some evidence that dark chocolate may be considered somewhat heart healthy because it can improve HDL levels (that’s good cholesterol), no reputable physician is suggesting you start taking it nightly with your Lipitor. Most people tend to consume chocolate in less-than-healthy forms that are loaded with sugar, so the risks far outweigh the benefits in terms of medical application. There are just simply safer and more effective ways to keep your arteries clear. Let’s be honest: Chocolate is really good, and you should probably just stick with eating it in moderation.