Posts tagged "told"

Chocolate’s Dark Side

During the medieval times, Christianity and chocolates didn’t mix. The Catholic Church used to bracket together chocolate and heretical behavior like blasphemy and even witchcraft. Does it even make sense? Read on.

I bet if you’re the type who digs medieval anything or maybe you’ve heard it at school at a certain point in your student life, you probably know about ‘Inquisition’. Never heard? Well then, let me shed some light on you about this dreadful thing. The Inquisition, Inquisitio Haereticae Pravitatis (inquiry on heretical perversity), gives a picture of the heavy-handedness of religion during that certain time, persecution, and prejudice. It was the fight against heresy by the Roman Catholic Church.

You may be wondering by now what exactly it is about chocolate that connects such a morbid even to our beloved chocolate. For starters, even downing a chocolaty beverage while in a particular event can be included in heretical behaviors. Truth be told and as morose as it may seem, there were even stories told in which Charles II, King of Spain, supposedly drank chocolate while observing Inquisition victims being slain.

Document and papers about Inquisition even acknowledged some actions of chocolate merchants that are involved in anti-Christian behavior, chocolate was even utilized in seduction and witchcraft. Those documents also showed how people went on betraying one another either by choice or by force.

A lot of individuals during those tough times were laid blame on for using chocolate in “non-Christian” acts. Some chocolatiers were even denounced for being observant Jews.

Thankfully, nowadays, chocolate is tantamount to anything cheery, joyful, and festive. It was quite a transition and a very disheartening story to hear. But it’s a thing of the past. All we can do now is be grateful that we can enjoy chocolate freely!

Related Chocolate Information Articles

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Posted by Nikita Gould - April 28, 2014 at 8:56 am

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Chocolates And Violent Video Games – How They Are Related

This particular research was done in Italy, and it involved 170 teenagers showing their skills in a violent video game, like Grand Theft Auto III, or a non-violent game like MiniGolf 3D, in a span of 45 minutes. A bowl of chocolate was beside the gaming console while they were playing. They knew they could eat the candies, albeit they were told that it was unhealthy to devour so much chocolates in a short period of time.

Those who played violent video games ate three times as much chocolates as those who played non-violent ones. After playing, the participants went through a 10-item logic test where they got one ticket for a prize raffle for every question they answered correctly. After learning the number of answers they got right, they were told to get the corresponding number of tickets from an envelope while not being watched.

The research team could definitely know if a certain participant took more than appropriate. Those who played violent games helped themselves to extras about eight times more often than did those who played a nonviolent game.

The aggressive tendencies of the participants have gone through testing when they played a game with an unseen fictional “partner” to get rights to blast the losing party with a loud noise via headphones. It showed that violent game players decided to blast their fictitious partners with louder noises that lasted much longer as compared to the non-violent gamers.

There could be teens that stay unfazed by these video games that suggested violence, but this particular research aids us in addressing the question of who is most likely to be affected.  According to the study, the effects were most noticeable in teen participants who scored pretty high in moral disengagement. (Moral disengagement is defined as one’s ability to convince himself that ethics do not apply in all situations.)

Both genders were affected. Girls ate even more chocolate, and were more likely to cheat, and to act aggressively when they were playing Grand Theft Auto as opposed to the mini golf or pinball game.

I was never the gamer girl. The video games I have played in my life, if there were any, have been few and far between. And for the most part, it’s just my way to give in to the hype. When I download a game on my mobile phone, I play it for like 3 days, a week tops, and then I move on with my life. So I can’t really have a say.

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Posted by Nikita Gould - March 24, 2014 at 8:13 am

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