Every Day Is Special: September 13 - International Chocolate Day

September 13 - International Chocolate Day

Posted on September 13, 2021

This is an update of my post published on September 13, 2010:

Created by candy maker associations, this holiday inspires restaurants and bakeries to have special menu items or promotions—but we can celebrate it at home, too! Whether you prefer your chocolate dark, white or milk, grab a hunk of chocolate, or a cup of cocoa, or a bowl of chocolate chunk brownie-bits ice cream, or... Well, I could go on and on, but you get the idea:

Eat some chocolate today!

World Records

In Yerevan, Armenia, the world's largest chocolate bar was created in 2010 and was certified by the Guinness Book of World Records. The 4,410-kilogram bar (or 9,702 pounds!) was made by Grand Candy factory. Its dimensions were 560 centimeters by 275 centimeters, and it was 25 centimeters thick. (That's about 18 feet by 9 feet, and 10 inches thick.)

In 2020, the Mars company set a record for the largest chocolate nut bar - actually, a Snickers bar the size of 43,000 single-size Snickers! - but then two weeks later, that record was broken by the Hershey company! The new largest chocolate nut bar was a HUGE Reese's Take 5 candy bar:

This enormous candy bar weighed 5,943 pounds and was 9 feet long, 5.5 feet wide, and 2 feet high!

Did you know...?

White chocolate contains cocoa butter, along with milk and sugar, but it doesn't have cocoa solids. The more familiar brown forms of chocolate (including dark, semi-sweet, unsweetened, and milk chocolate) contains cocoa solids and varying amounts of cocoa butter.

Chocolate can lower blood pressure and is linked to serotonin levels in the brain, which is why it can be a feel-good food. However, one alkaloid in chocolate, theobromine, makes it poisonous for some animals, including dogs and cats.

The English word chocolate comes from the Spanish word chocolate (spelled the same way but pronounced differently). Where did the Spanish word come from? Scholars aren't sure, but it probably came from a Mayan word or a Nahuatl word. (The latter is the language spoken by the Aztecs.) Certainly the world got chocolate from Central and South America, where cacao has been grown and used at least since 1100 BC (or BCE).