Chocolate as Medicine - by Philip K Wilson & W Jeffrey Hurst (Paperback)

About the Book

This book, for the first time, describes the topic of chocolate as medicine from a historical perspective but also explores the benefits of cocoa, its positive health effects, and the myths around why chocolate was thought to be bad.

Book Synopsis

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 sound 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 authors explore variations in the types of evidence used to support 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 authors, Wilson an historian of science and medicine, and Hurst an 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.

From the Back Cover

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 sound 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 authors 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 authors, Wilson an historian of science and medicine, and Hurst an 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.

Review Quotes

"The authors of Chocolate as Medicine start their dissertation from this definition, tracing the history of chocolate as medicine and providing very interesting glimpses into it's current use. The book summarises the best evidence available from science to support and confirm the health benefits of chocolate."

"Recent studies have now provided the evidence to a century's established use of chocolate as medicine and this enjoyable book reconstructs this path, providing an inter-disciplinary approach, thanks to the complementary skills of the two authors."

-- "Chemistry World, July 2013, Volume 10, number 07"

"The title alone of Chocolate in Medicine, a Quest over the Centuries by P.K. Wilson and W.J. Hurst would make it irresistible and it is indeed immensely readable."

"chocolate is clearly an important ingredient of the Royal Society of Chemistry: so successful was their Science of Chocolate (2000) that a revised edition was called for in 2008 and articles in their journal, Food and Function, have such titles as 'Oral processing of two milk chocolate samples'. If this had been included in the O-level practical classes perhaps I should have continued with chemistry."

-- "Ultramicroscopy 137 (2014) 72-92"

About the Author

The authors have written this work while both working in the famed United States chocolate town, Hershey, Pennsylvania. Philip K. Wilson, MA, PhD is Professor of Medical Humanities and Science, Technology & Society as well as Director of The Doctors Kienle Center for Humanistic Medicine at The Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine in Hershey. W. Jeffrey Hurst, PhD is a Principle Scientist at Hershey Foods Technical Center in Hershey, and founding Treasurer of the International Society of Chocolate and Cocoa in Medicine.