In ancient Mayan texts cocoa is considered a gift of the gods: Pre-Columbian populations used chocolate as medicine, too. After the discovery of America, chocolate was introduced in Europe, but Christian Europe looked to this new exhilarating drink with extreme suspiciousness and criticism. From this reaction, the necessity derived to appeal to the reasons of health, with which doctors and scientists committed themselves to explain that chocolate was good for the body. However, during the Enlightment, the road of therapy separated from that of taste, and chocolate mainly maintained its leading role of excipient, bearing the burden, over time, of a negative valence, being associated with obesity, dental problems, unhealthy lifestyle, and so forth. The rehabilitation of chocolate has arisen only in recent times, re-establishing that value that Linnaeus himself credited to chocolate, calling the generous plant Theobroma cacao, food of the gods.
Sin and Pleasure: The History of Chocolate in Medicine / Lippi, Donatella. - In: JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL AND FOOD CHEMISTRY. - ISSN 0021-8561. - STAMPA. - 63:(2015), pp. 9936-41-9941. [10.1021/acs.jafc.5b00829]
Sin and Pleasure: The History of Chocolate in Medicine
LIPPI, DONATELLA
2015
Abstract
In ancient Mayan texts cocoa is considered a gift of the gods: Pre-Columbian populations used chocolate as medicine, too. After the discovery of America, chocolate was introduced in Europe, but Christian Europe looked to this new exhilarating drink with extreme suspiciousness and criticism. From this reaction, the necessity derived to appeal to the reasons of health, with which doctors and scientists committed themselves to explain that chocolate was good for the body. However, during the Enlightment, the road of therapy separated from that of taste, and chocolate mainly maintained its leading role of excipient, bearing the burden, over time, of a negative valence, being associated with obesity, dental problems, unhealthy lifestyle, and so forth. The rehabilitation of chocolate has arisen only in recent times, re-establishing that value that Linnaeus himself credited to chocolate, calling the generous plant Theobroma cacao, food of the gods.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
---|---|---|---|
Sin and pleasure.pdf
Accesso chiuso
Tipologia:
Pdf editoriale (Version of record)
Licenza:
Open Access
Dimensione
170.3 kB
Formato
Adobe PDF
|
170.3 kB | Adobe PDF | Richiedi una copia |
I documenti in FLORE sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.