World Chocolate Day – brought to you by Ecotricity and Divine vegan chocolate
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Today, 7th July 2020, is World Chocolate Day; the day we celebrate the majestic cocoa bean in its greatest form – vegan chocolate!
So, grab yourself a bar and settle down to discover some amazing facts about the UK’s favourite treat…
What is vegan chocolate?
The purest chocolate is naturally vegan – after all, cocoa comes from a plant – and Divine use a winning combination of sugar and 100% cocoa butter (no vegetable oil here, thank you) to create their famous melt-in-your-mouth texture.
However, there’s a bit more to gorgeous chocolate than ingredients alone. The vegan chocolate making process has quite a few steps:
It starts with the cocoa plant, which produces around 200-500 beans per pod.
The beans are roasted then ground into a thick brown liquid called cocoa mass.
This is then pressed, which separates the mass into cocoa powder and cocoa butter.
Solid chocolate is made by combining cocoa mass with cocoa butter in varying proportions, and adding sugar to taste.
This mixture is stirred continuously for several days, giving the finished chocolate its smooth, silky texture. Other ingredients such as nuts and flavourings are added at this stage.
Vegan chocolate is fighting climate change…
That sounds like a bold claim – but it’s true. Animal farming harms the environment and has a larger carbon footprint, so a vegan diet is less damaging to the planet as well as being better for your health.
A bar of vegan chocolate may seem like a small luxury to us but Divine’s partnership with the cocoa farmers who co-own the company is living proof that chocolate can deliver positive change. And needless to say, their vegan chocolate is palm-oil free, Fairtrade and is free from artificial flavours and GMOs.
… And so is vegan energy
We’re the only energy supplier in the UK to offer vegan power – you won’t believe what goes into other suppliers’ fuels – and we’re registered with The Vegan Society and Viva! for our green electricity and green gas.
Our top 10 favourite chocolate facts
Almost everyone loves chocolate, so it’s the perfect subject for Zoom quiz questions or just as a bit of trivia to share over a cup of coffee and a bite of vegan rocky road.
According to the International Cocoa Organisation, the average person in the UK eats 11 kilograms of chocolate a year.
Chocolate melts in your mouth because it’s the only edible substance to melt around 32°C, just below human body temperature.
Cocoa has been around for millennia but the first solid chocolate bar was produced by Fry's of Bristol in 1847, a mere 173 years ago.
Cocoa beans were once valuable enough to use as currency. According to a 16th-century Aztec document, 100 beans could purchase a good turkey hen. That’s the same number of beans used to make one Divine vegan chocolate bar.
Too much chocolate can kill you. Theobromine, the compound in chocolate that makes it poisonous to cats and dogs, can kill a human as well. A lethal dose of chocolate for people is about 10kg, though.
Chocolate has over 600 flavour compounds, while red wine only has around 200.
The Guinness world record for the largest chocolate bar ever weighed in at 5,792.50 kilograms (12,770 pounds).
The 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory starring Gene Wilder was actually financed by Quaker Oats to promote its new Wonka Bar chocolate bar. This is also why the film is called “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” instead of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” like the book it’s based on by Roald Dahl.
During the second world war, the Nazis plotted to assassinate Winston Churchill with an exploding bar of chocolate.
The scientific name for the tree that chocolate comes from, Theobroma cacao, means “food of the gods.”
Divine chocolate’s top 5 vegan chocolate recipes
We don’t just eat it, we bake with it too. This World Chocolate Day, why not try your hand at one of these delicious recipes. Our favourite is the Easy Vegan Rocky Road because it’s so simple and quick to make.
Switch to vegan energy with Divine
Treat yourself to a piece of vegan chocolate and join the green energy revolution today. We'll send you a hamper from Divine Chocolate when you switch your energy supply to us.
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