Chocolate is a gift! It is a gift, first of all, historically, to the Gods. It's their favorite Earthly treat! In Mayan days, to appease the gods, and royalty, and the priests, you gave a tribute of cacao.
Then, the Spanish soldiers and traders took it home to Europe for gifts to royalty and loved ones and as a special imported commodity for the well-to-do.
Although there's plenty of “gold in them there rivers” and hills and jungles, Cacao is the real gold of Central America. Here it still maintains some of its value as an indigenous crop, mostly unadulterated by large plantation practices and exploited by multi-national commerce or industrial processes.
Chocolate is a gift you give to Loved Ones. It tells them they are special. It shares love and gratitude for "the good things in life." Chocolate is one of those "good things."
Chocolate is a gift you give to yourself. Out of motivation or reward, or just loving yourself and treating yourself well. Often, people who feel guilty, out of a misinformed and misguided sense of propriety, feel they need to justify their love of chocolate.
There are plenty of studies that show the benefits of chocolate. In general, "feeling good" is the consensus behind the science.
Many claim that the cacao tree is the Tree of Life, depicted in many traditions. Not the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but the other one--the one they were forbidden to eat of after partaking of the duality.
Jack's beans may actually have been cacao...magic beans that were supposed to take you up to the heavens. Alas, they were misused and ended up in a nasty confrontation with an angry giant.
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