Cocoa and its products contain substantial amounts of essential dietary minerals. Minerals composition can vary between different cocoa varieties and within the same variety because of different variable.
Cocoa contains several minerals such as potassium, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, copper, iron and calcium which have important roles in the metabolism of the human body.
The most nutrient dense sources of copper are cocoa and dark chocolate. Copper is an important mineral in human nutrition.
Copper is necessary for bone metabolism, brain and nerve cell development, heart rhythm, immune responsiveness, nerve transmission and function and the synthesis of hemoglobin. One cup of unsweetened cocoa powder contain copper 163% of daily recommended values.
While iron is importance for hemoglobin and the formation of healthy blood cells, iron is an essential element in numerous other biological functions. Iron in cocoa unsweetened is about 66% of daily recommended values.
Mineral in cocoa
The word chocolate is derived from the Aztecs names for the tree, and for the drink they prepared from the beans. These words live on in Mexican today as ‘choclatl’ for the drink and ‘cacauatl’ for the tree. Chocolate was first cultivated as a crop, by ancient Mesoamerican peoples. They used cacao beans to create a frothy chocolate drink flavored with spices.
The most popular articles
-
The cocoa tree is an unusual tree, with its cultivation confined to limited areas and climatic conditions. The processing required both in t...
-
Expeller cocoa butter is the fat prepared by the expeller process from cocoa beans singly or in combination with cocoa nib, cocoa mass, coco...
-
Purple beans refer to low quality beans with purple color. The main reason for purple bean is a lack of adequate fermentation. When harves...
-
The standard method for evaluating the quality of cocoa beans is a cut test on which the interior of a certain number of beans that have bee...
-
Composition of Cocoa Beans The general composition of cocoa beans from various sources is similar. With properly fermented mature beans t...