Cocoa and Chocolate Part 14

IMPORTS OF CACAO b.u.t.tER.

Tons (of 1000 kilogrammes) 1912 1913 United States 1,842 1,634 Switzerland 1,821 1,634 Belgium 1,127 1,197 Austria-Hungary 1,062 1,190 Russia 955 1,197 England 495 934

The next table shows the imports (expressed in English tons) into the United Kingdom in more recent years:

IMPORTS OF CACAO b.u.t.tER.

Year 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 Tons 477 912 1512 599 962 675

The wholesale price of cacao b.u.t.ter has varied in the last six years from 1/3 per pound to 2/11 per pound, and was fixed in 1918 by the Food Controller at 1/6 per pound (retail price 2/- per pound). The control was removed in 1919, and immediately the wholesale price rose to 2/8 per pound.

_Cacao Sh.e.l.l._

Although I have described cacao b.u.t.ter as a by-product, the only true by-product of the combined cocoa and chocolate industry is cacao sh.e.l.l.

I explained in the previous chapter how it is separated from the roasted bean. As they come from the husking or winnowing machine, the larger fragments of sh.e.l.l resemble the sh.e.l.l of monkey-nuts (ground nuts or pea nuts), except that the cacao sh.e.l.ls are thinner, more brittle and of a richer brown colour. The sh.e.l.l has a pleasant odour in which a little true cocoa aroma can be detected. The small pieces of sh.e.l.l look like bran, and, if the sh.e.l.l be powdered, the product is wonderfully like cocoa in appearance, though not in taste or smell. As the raw cacao bean contains on the average about twelve and a half per cent. of sh.e.l.l, it is evident that the world production must be considerable (about 36,000 tons a year), and since it is not legitimately employed in cocoa, the brains of inventors have been busy trying to find a use for it. In some industries the by-product has proved on investigation to be of greater value than the princ.i.p.al product--a good instance of this is glycerine as a by-product in soap manufacture--but no use for the husk or sh.e.l.l of cacao, which gives it any considerable commercial value, has yet been discovered. There are signs, however, that its possible uses are being considered and appreciated.

For years small quant.i.ties of cacao sh.e.l.l, under the name of "miserables," have been used in Ireland and other countries for producing a dilute infusion for drinking. Although this "cocoa tea" is not unpleasant, and has mild stimulating properties, it has never been popular, and even during the war, when it was widely advertised and sold in England under fancy names at fancy prices, it never had a large or enthusiastic body of consumers.

In normal times the cocoa manufacturer has no difficulty in disposing of his sh.e.l.l to cattle-food makers and others, but during 1915 when the train service was so defective, and transport by any other means almost impossible, the manufacturers of cocoa and chocolate were unable to get the sh.e.l.l away from their factories, and had large acc.u.mulations of it filling up valuable store s.p.a.ce. In these circ.u.mstances they attempted to find a use near at hand. It was tried with moderate success as a fuel and a considerable quant.i.ty was burned in a special type of gas-producer intended for wood.

Cacao sh.e.l.l has a high nitrogenous content, and if burned yields about 67 lbs. of pota.s.sium carbonate per ton. In the Annual Report of the Experimental Farms in Canada, (1898, p. 151 and 1899, p. 851,) accounts are given of the use of cacao sh.e.l.l as a manure. The results given are encouraging, and experiments were made at Bournville. At first these were only moderately successful, because the sh.e.l.l is extremely stable and decomposes in the ground very slowly indeed. Then the head gardener tried hastening the decomposition by placing the sh.e.l.l in a heap, soaking with water and turning several times before use. In this way the sh.e.l.l was converted into a decomposing ma.s.s before being applied to the ground, and gave excellent results both as a manure and as a lightener of heavy soils.

On the Continent the small amount of cacao b.u.t.ter which the sh.e.l.l contains is extracted from it by volatile solvents. The "sh.e.l.l b.u.t.ter"

so obtained is very inferior to ordinary cacao b.u.t.ter, and as usually put on the market, has an unpleasant taste, and an odour which reminds one faintly of an old tobacco-pipe. In this unrefined condition it is obviously unsuitable for edible purposes.

Sh.e.l.l contains about one per cent. of _theobromine_ (dimethylxanthine).

This is a very valuable chemical substance (see remarks in chapter on Food Value of Cocoa and Chocolate), and the extraction of theobromine from sh.e.l.l is already practised on a large scale, and promises to be a profitable industry. Ordinary commercial samples of sh.e.l.l contain from 1.2 to 1.4 per cent. of theobromine. Those interested should study the very ingenious process of Messrs. Grousseau and Vicongne (Patent No.

120,178). Many other uses of cacao sh.e.l.l have been made and suggested; thus it has been used for the production of a good coffee subst.i.tute, and also, during the shortage of sawdust, as a packing material, but its most important use at the present time is as cattle food, and its most important abuse as an adulterant of cocoa.

The value of cacao sh.e.l.l as cattle food has been known for a long time, and is indicated in the following a.n.a.lysis by Smetham (in the Journal of the Lancashire Agricultural Society, 1914).

a.n.a.lYSIS OF CACAO Sh.e.l.l.

Water 9.30 Fat 3.83 Mineral Matter 8.20 Alb.u.minoids 18.81 Fibre 13.85 Digestible Carbohydrates 46.01 ------ 100.00 ------

From these figures Smetham calculates the food units as 102, so that it is evident that cacao sh.e.l.l occupies a good position when compared with other fodders:

FOOD UNITS.

Linseed cake 133 Oatmeal 117 Bran 109 English wheat 106 _Cacao sh.e.l.ls_ 102 Maize (new crop) 99 Meadow hay 68 Rice husks 43 Wheat straw 41 Mangels 12

These a.n.a.lytical results have been supported by practical feeding experiments in America and Germany (see full account in Zipperer's book, _The Manufacture of Chocolate_). Prof. Faelli, in Turin, obtained, by giving cacao sh.e.l.l to cows, an increase in both the quant.i.ty and quality of the milk. More recent experience seems to indicate that it is unwise to put a very high percentage of cacao sh.e.l.l in a cattle food; in small quant.i.ties in compound feeding cakes, etc., as an appetiser it has been used for years with good results. (Further particulars will be found in _Cacao Sh.e.l.ls as Fodder_, by A.W. Knapp, _Tropical Life_, 1916, p. 154, and in _The Separation and Uses of Cacao Sh.e.l.l_, Society of Chemical Industry's Journal, 1918, 240). The price of sh.e.l.l has shown great variation. The following figures are for the grade of sh.e.l.l which is almost entirely free from cocoa:

CACAO Sh.e.l.l.

AVERAGE PRICE PER TON.

Year 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 Price 65/- 70/- 70/- 70/- 90/- 128/- 284/- 161/-

PRICE PER FOOD UNIT.

_July_, 1915. _Jan._, 1919.

_s._ _d._ _s._ _d._ English Oats 3 1-1/2 3 8 Cotton Seed Cake 2 5 3 11 Linseed Cake 1 7 3 5 Brewers Grains (dried) 1 6-1/2 3 8-1/2 Decorticated Cotton Cake 1 6 3 3-1/2 Cacao Sh.e.l.l 8-1/4 1 4-1/2

The above table speaks for itself; the figures are from the Journal of the Board of Agriculture; I have added cacao sh.e.l.l for comparison.

CHAPTER VIII

THE COMPOSITION AND FOOD VALUE OF COCOA AND CHOCOLATE

Before the Spaniards made themselves Masters of Mexico, no other drink was esteem'd but that of cocoa; none caring for wine, notwithstanding the soil produces vines everywhere in great abundance of itself.

John Ogilvy's _America_, 1671.

The early writers on chocolate generally became lyrical when they wrote of its value as a food. Thus in the _Natural History of Chocolate_, by R. Brookes (1730), we read that an ounce of chocolate contains as much nourishment as a pound of beef, that a woman and a child, and even a councillor, lived on chocolate alone for a long period, and further: "Before chocolate was known in Europe, good old wine was called the milk of old men; but this t.i.tle is now applied with greater reason to chocolate, since its use has become so common, that it has been perceived that chocolate is, with respect to them, what milk is to infants."

A more temperate tone is shown in the following, from _A Curious Treatise of the Nature and Quality of Chocolate_, by Antonio Colmenero de Ledesma, a Spaniard, Physician and Chyrurgion of the city of Ecija, in Andaluzia (printed at the Green Dragon, 1685):

So great is the number of those persons, who at present do drink of Chocolate, that not only in the West Indies, whence this drink has its original and beginning, but also in Spain, Italy, Flanders, &c., it is very much used, and especially in the Court of the King of Spain; where the great ladies drink it in a morning before they rise out of their beds, and lately much used in England, as Diet and Phisick with the Gentry. Yet there are several persons that stand in doubt both of the hurt and of the benefit, which proceeds from the use thereof; some saying, that it obstructs and causes opilations, others and those the most part, that it fattens, several a.s.sure us that it fortifies the stomach: some again that it heats and inflames the body. But very many steadfastly affirm, that tho' they shou'd drink it at all hours, and that even in the Dog-days, they find themselves very well after it.

So much for the old valuations; let us now attempt by modern methods to estimate the food value of cacao and its preparations.

_Food Value of Cacao Beans._

In estimating the worth of a food, it is usual to compare the fuel values. This peculiar method is adopted because the most important requirement in nutrition is that of giving energy for the work of the body, and a food may be thought of as being burnt up (oxidised) in the human machine in the production of heat and energy. The various food const.i.tuents serve in varying degrees as fuel to produce energy, and hence to judge of the food value it is necessary to know the chemical composition. Below we give the average composition of cacao beans and the fuel value calculated from these figures:

AVERAGE COMPOSITION AND FUEL VALUE OF FRESHLY ROASTED CACAO BEANS (NIBS).

_Composition._ _Energy-giving power_ _Calories per lb._

Cacao b.u.t.ter 54.0 = 2,282 Protein (total nitrogen 2.3%) 11.9 = 221 Cacao Starch 6.7 } = 472 Other Digestible Carbohydrates, etc. 18.7 } Stimulants { Theobromine 1.0 { Caffein 0.4 Mineral Matter 3.2 Crude Fibre 2.6 Moisture 1.5 ------ ----- 100.0 2,975 ------ -----