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Chocolate as an Aphrodisiac
A lot of proclamations have been said throughout the centuries about the aphrodisiacal qualities of chocolate. Casanova declared that it was much more invigorating than champagne, Madame du Barry gave it to all her lovers and Moctezuma always consumed great quantities of it before visiting his wives.
In the XVII century it was considered such an invigorating arousal of passions that it almost became prohibited for monks to drink it and in 1624, the theologian Johanes Franciscus Rauch wrote that if this prohibition were carried about, the scandal in which that holy order had been marked could have showed to lack basis. Almost a century later, an article was written in The Spectator on May 1712 warned and advised all of its distinguished readers to be careful, very particularly, on how they became involved in romances, chocolate, novels and other things of the sort that the author considered to be very dangerous…
Whether chocolate is or not an aphrodisiac is still something that is open to conjectures. What is true is that there is a relationship between chocolate and being in love – or to be more exact, not in love -. Chocolate has a chemical substance that is also found in the brain. This substance is a natural amphetamine that is activated when a person is in love, causing a feeling of total euphoria. When someone is not in love and feels depressed or bummed out, it is common he or she will buy a chocolate bar to console themselves, which could be due to a natural reaction of the body to satisfy the lack of that certain chemical substance.
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