Posts Tagged Theobroma Cacao
Self Medicate With Chocolate
Joy means Health. David Wolfe wrote about the astonishing truth behind the worlds greatest food. A bliss chemical called Anandamide is released when we eat cacao-rich foods. It is like the feeling of falling in love. No wonder we have all loved chocolate in one point of our lives. How can you even say no to such sweet escape? When one feels good and happy, one stays healthy.
What’s the story behind this superfood? Cacao, a much revered miracle food from the Central Americas, was loved by the Mayans and used as a great offering to the Aztec gods. The Theobroma Cacao tree can grow up to 7-8 meters. It produces an almost pear-shaped fruit that is reddish-yellow in color on the tree and becoming brown when dried. This exotic fruit is cultivated to produce the finest super health seed known as the cocoa bean.
Tags: Antioxidant, Antioxidants, Beans, Benefits, Blood Pressure, Cacao, Cacao Tree, Chocolate, Cocoa, Cocoa Bean, Cocoa Beans, Cocoa Powder, Dark Chocolate, Health, Healthy, Herb, Lower Blood Pressure, Raw Cacao, Theobroma Cacao, Theobroma Cacao TreeRelated posts
Genetic Roots Of Cacao Trees Traced
By examining the DNA of cacao trees, Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists and colleagues from confectionery giant Mars, Inc., have traced the genetic roots of the key ingredient in chocolate.
Cocoa comes from the Theobroma cacao tree, which forms the basis of a multibillion-dollar U.S. chocolate industry. The seeds are processed into cocoa beans that are the source of cocoa, cocoa butter and chocolate. But diseases cost growers an estimated $700 million each year, and scientists have been looking for ways to produce cacao trees that can resist them.
David Kuhn, a molecular biologist at the ARS Subtropical Horticulture Research Station in Miami, Fla., and the research team published findings this fall that are a step toward that goal, shedding light on Theobroma’s genetic diversity.
Tags: Beans, Cacao, Cacao Tree, Chocolate, Chocolate Industry, Cocoa, Cocoa Bean, Cocoa Beans, Cocoa Butter, Theobroma Cacao, Theobroma Cacao TreeRelated posts
Sequencing The Cacao Genome To Safeguard Chocolate
During the past 15 years, the global cocoa industry has confronted a trio of devastating fungal diseases that cost growers an estimated $700 million in losses annually. Now scientists at the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Subtropical Horticultural Research Station (SHRS) in Miami, Fla., are developing productive cacao (Theobroma cacao) trees resistant to these diseases: witches’ broom, frosty pod and black pod.
The research has been based upon traditional varietal selection and breeding, enhanced by the use of molecular (DNA-derived) markers associated with disease resistance.
Tags: Cacao, Chocolate, Cocoa, Cocoa Product, Cocoa Production, Cocoa Tree, Cocoa Trees, Theobroma CacaoRelated posts