The internet is full of fabulous facts about everything from current events to the history basket weaving. As we research for our daily content on food trucks, food carts and street food, we stumble upon some items of knowledge that we just did not know.

We have decided when these fun facts pop up, that we would share them with our readers in our section titled “Did You Know?”

For today’s Did You Know we will look at Dark Chocolate fun facts.

Dark Chocolate Fun Facts: Dark chocolate is made from the roasted beans of the cacao tree, native to South America. Columbus ‘discovered’ these beans, and the returning crew of his fourth voyage took them to Europe.

• Chocolate was first seen in bar form in about 1910.
• Cocoa butter’s melting point is just below human body temperature – the reason chocolate melts so beautifully in your mouth.
• February 1st is National Dark Chocolate Day.
• A  study funded by the University of California, San Francisco, School of Nursing found that a single 1.6-ounce bar of dark chocolate every day is good for you, very good for you.
• Dark chocolate bars with high-cocoa content are loaded with epicatechin. Epicatechin is a particularly active member of a group of compounds called plant flavoniods. Flavoniods keep cholesterol from gathering in blood vessels, reduce the risk of blood clots, and slow down the immune responses that lead to clogged arteries.
• Not all chocolate is created equal. Dark chocolate contains a lot more cocoa than other forms of chocolate. And standard chocolate manufacturing destroys up to half of the flavoniods. But chocolate companies have now learned to make dark chocolate that keeps up to 95% of its flavoniods.
• Eating dark chocolate can also lower insulin resistance, the main problem behind diabetes.

Dark Chocolate Fun Facts We Missed

Let us know if we missed any dark chocolate fun facts in the comment section below. If we can verify that the facts is just that, a fact, we will give the reader credit in the article.

Reference: Wikipedia: Fun Facts about Dark Chocolate.