Post-Industrial Chocolate: From Good to Bad

With the coming of the Industrial Revolution, chocolate manufacturers found themselves in regional and global competition for consumers.

At the same time that chocolate was being served in liquid form as a medicine for the sick, it was also being produced with added fats and sugars as a cheap candy.

The mid- to late-1800s saw the creation of a tremendous market for chocolate penny candy, as well as for fancy boxed chocolates that have since become synonymous with love and courtship.
By the 1950s, chocolate had completely lost its association with health and healing. Many of today’s most famous chocolate companies got their start during the Great Depression, known to those in the business as the ―hungry thirties‖ due to the popularity of this cheap diversion from the doldrums of everyday life during the economic crisis. Are we experiencing the ―hungry 2000s‖ today? The market seems to indicate that this is so [tk ref an article here]

A Renaissance in Chocolate

Only in the past few years has cocoa been reexamined as a health food and nutritious source of antioxidants, anti-inflammatories, vitamins and minerals.

Overall, the demand for cacao remains very high, with an estimated 3.5 million tons (that’s 7,000,000,000 pounds) consumed during 2008