Chocolate as medicine : a quest over the centuries / Philip K. Wilson, W. Jeffrey Hurst.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wilson, Philip K.

Contributor:

Hurst, W. Jeffrey (William Jeffrey), 1948-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Chocolate--Health aspects.

Chocolate.

Chocolate--Therapeutic use.

Cacao.

Physical Description:

xx, 213 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, UK : RSC Publishing, 2012.

Summary:

The Mesoamerican population who lived near the indigenous cultivation sites of the "Chocolate Tree" (Theobromo cacao) had a multitude of documented applications of chocolate as medicine, ranging from alleviating fatigue to preventing heart ailments to treating snakebite. Until recently, these applications have received little sounds scientific scrutiny, Rather, it has been the reputed health claims stemming from Europe and the United States which have attracted considerable biomedical attention.

This book, for the first time, describes the centuries-long quest to uncover chocolate's potential health benefits. The author explore variations in the types of evidence supporting chocolate's use as medicine as well as note the ongoing tension over categorizing chocolate as food or medicine, and more recently, as functional food or nutraceutical.

The author, Wilson, an historian of science and medicine, and Hurst, and analytical chemist in the chocolate industry, bring their collective insights to bear upon the development of ideas and practices surrounding the use of chocolate as medicine. Chocolate's use in this manner is explored first among the Mesoamerican peoples, then as it is transported to Europe, and back into Colonial North America. The authors then focus upon more recent bioscience experimental undertakings which have been aimed to ascertain both long-standing and novel suggestions as to chocolate's efficacy as a medicinal and a nutritional substance. Chocolate's reputation as the most craved food boosts this book's appeal to food and biomedical scientists, cacao researchers, ethnobotanists, historians, folklorists, and healers of all types as well as to the general reading audience. Book jacket.

Contents:

Chocolate as medicine: an introduction

Chocolate as medicine: seeking evidence throughout history

Chocolate and healing in pre-Columbian Mesoamerican culture

Cacao transported to Europe as medicine

Expanding chocolate's use as medicine

Chocolate and nutritional health: industrial era through WWII

Modern chocolate science and human heath

Epilogue: prognosticating chocolate's future as medicine.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781849734110

1849734119

OCLC:

785866967