CHOCOLATE AS AN ARTICLE OF FOOD. 33 



The seeds of at least two plants are used as important 

 adjuncts to our list of foods, and can be enumerated among 

 foods without any impropriety. These are coffee and cocoa. 

 They contain nutritive properties, — the latter in very much 

 higher degree than the former, — and they possess also peculiar 

 constituents which entitle them to rank as luxuries. These pecul- 

 iar constituents are (1) flavoring matters, and (2) an active prin- 

 ciple. But, either from its constitution or from its association in 

 the seed, the active principle of coffee, although it has nearly or 

 quite the same ultimate composition as the active principle of 

 cocoa, is unlike it in its effects. The active principle of cocoa is 

 substantially free, as used in its preparations, from any undesirable 

 effects on the nervous system. This active principle of cocoa is 

 Theobromine. 



The essentials of a perfect food are (1) a certain amount of 

 carbohydrates, (2) of albuminoids, and (3) certain mineral matters, 

 these latter being substantially the same in all seeds used as food. 

 In cocoa these three groups are combined in proper proportion to 

 constitute a complete food, but there is superadded the active prin- 

 ciple, Theobromine, which places it at once in the class of luxuries 

 as well as of necessary foods. 



When cocoa-seeds are prepared properly for food, without 

 doing violence to the chemical relations of the different compo- 

 nents, a comforting nutritive article of the highest value is ob- 

 tained. This ideal method of preparation is not a chemical 

 torturing by the addition of foreign ingredients, as in the alkali 

 process, but it consists in the complete unlocking, by perfectly 

 natural, mechanical means, of all the virtues of the seeds. We do 

 not try to render the albuminoids of wheat and other grains soluble 

 by means of ammonia, soda, or potash, nor do we think it desirable 

 -to increase the solubility of the albuminoids of egg and meat by 



