Chocolate is a staple for many people, whether it's because of the taste, the health benefits, or just total enjoyment and indulgence. But did you know there are tons of interesting facts about chocolate? Show your love for your favorite snack by checking out these fun facts about chocolate. 

1. Intellectual Superiority

Does chocolate contribute to intellectual superiority? Perhaps. Eat up because there is a positive correlation between the amount of chocolate a country consumes and the number of Nobel Laureates that country has produced.

2. Versatility

How's this for versatility: the blood in Psycho's famous shower scene was, in fact, chocolate syrup.

3. Complex Flavors

Let's talk complex flavors: chocolate has over 600 different flavor compounds. Red wine? A measly 200.

4. War Secrets

More than an explosion of flavor: Nazis once plotted to kill Winston Churchill with an exploding bar of chocolate.

5. Labor Intensive

It takes a cocoa tree nearly a full year to produce enough pods to make just ten standard-sized chocolate bars.

6. Chocolate Heist

What would you do for chocolate? A jewel thief in Belgium pulled off a $28 million heist after reportedly gaining the trust of the bank's guards by offering them chocolate.

7. Drink Up

For 90% of its history, chocolate was consumed as a liquid – not a solid.

8. Sweet Poison

The compound theobromine, found in chocolate, makes it dangerous for dogs. And it could kill a human, too, but only in a tremendous fit of gluttony, as an average 10-year-old child would have to eat 1,900 Hershey's miniature milk chocolates in a single sitting to reach a fatal dose.

9. Better Than Cash

Soldiers were sometimes paid in chocolate during the Revolutionary War.

10. Royal Drink

Aztec emperor Montezuma II drank over 50 cups of chocolate every day.

11. Old School

Pre-Columbian societies are said to have mixed many materials with chocolate, including ground dinosaur fossils.

12. Not About Space

The Milky Way candy bar was not named after our galaxy. Instead, the name was meant to invoke the flavor of a malted milkshake.

13. Three Musketeers

Three Musketeers bars were originally sold as three pieces in a package, one each of vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry flavors. Why the change? The price of strawberries went up.

14. Lifetime Supply

Ruth Wakefield, the inventor of the chocolate chip cookie, sold her recipe to Nestle. Her payment? A lifetime supply of chocolate.

15. White Chocolate

White chocolate isn’t technically real chocolate. But you already knew that.

16. Helping Ben & Jerry’s

Ben & Jerry's cookie dough ice cream was born of an anonymous suggestion at their factory.

17. Rest & Recovery

If you've had a particularly hard workout, chocolate milk is a good post-workout recovery drink.

18. Cha-Ching

The most expensive chocolate bar of all time sold for $687 in 2001. The bar was brought along on Captain Robert Scott's first expedition to the Antarctic.

19. Not So Secret

A study conducted in London in 2004 showed that 70% of people would reveal their passwords in exchange for a chocolate bar.

20. Language of Love

On Valentine's Day every year, American buy over 58 million pounds of chocolate.

21. Belgium Chocolate

Do you know where the most chocolate in the world is sold? The Brussels Airport. More than 800 tons are sold there every year.

22. Books & Chocolate

Bookstores love chocolate because the mere aroma makes customers 40% more likely to buy cookbooks or romance novels and 22% more likely to buy any books at all.

23. Not So German

Did you think German chocolate cake is from Germany? Nope. It's named after its inventor, Sam German.

24. All That Cacao

It takes approximately 400 cacao beans to make one pound of chocolate.

25. M&M History

M&M's were created in 1941 as a means for soldiers to enjoy chocolate without it melting (you know the slogan!).

26. Not a Minute Goes By

Every second, Americans collectively eat 100 pounds of chocolate.

27. Pound By Pound

The world's largest chocolate bar weighed 12,770 pounds.

28. Saved By the Bell

Chocolate magnate Milton Hershey canceled his reservations for the Titanic due to last-minute business matters.

29. Pearly Whites

Chocolate has an anti-bacterial effect on the mouth and protects against tooth decay.

30. Save Your Heart

Eating dark chocolate every day reduces the risk of heart disease by one-third.

31. The Best Chocolate

The best chocolate in all of Minnesota is at Legacy Chocolates. (OK, we're a little biased!)

Show Yourself Some Love at Legacy Chocolates

Now that you’re full of fun chocolate facts, indulge in some of the sweet stuff by stopping by Legacy Chocolates in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota! 

 

If you’re not from around here, that’s okay! You can shop online and have your favorite truffles and chocolate bark shipped to your home. 

 

Are you interested in more information about our handmade chocolates? Give us a call at 651-340-5252 or send us a message through our website. We look forward to sharing the chocolate love!