Author Archive: Jeffrey Kirk

Chocolate Milk for Exercise Recovery

Research shows that chocolate milk might be just as good as sports drinks to help athletes recover from intense exercise.  This information comes out of a small study from James Madison University in Virginia as presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine.
 
I like to ride my bicycle for hours at a time and have often enjoyed a glass of chocolate milk upon my return.  My logic was that the milk contained some protein so it's probably a good thing for muscles.  Milk also contains fluid for rehydration, as well as minerals like calcium and magnesium, electrolytes such as sodium and potassium, and carbohydrates including lactose.  These are all good for recovery after exercise and occur naturally in milk.
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Allô Chocolat’s Chocolate Covered Bacon

Wow!  What else can I say?  This afternoon Bryn and I visited an independent chocolate shop called Allô! Chocolat in Waukesha, Wisconsin.  We met with the owners, Roger and Carrie, who have been in the chocolate business for about 3 years.

It's a nice shop on Main Street.  They've got a plentiful selection of chocolates available to suit any taste.  They'll even customize formulas on request for special clientele!
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Chocolate Summer School?

The school year is done.  Nothing new is on TV.  It's too hot to be outside.  You don't want to spend another day at the mall.  And just sitting around doing nothing in the air conditioning one more day doesn't sound very appealing either.

Is this how your summer goes?  While the school year might be September to June (roughly speaking anyway), there's nothing that says you can't start studying something fun this summer.  You can get started right now by enrolling yourself in chocolate school!
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Calories vs. Flavor

Cruising around the internet looking for interesting news I ran into a headline of an article written by etiquette expert Jodi R.R. Smith.  It read, "Diet no excuse for spitting out chewed chocolate."

Yikes!  Who would spit out chocolate?  I read on to discover that upon taking a piece of chocolate into her mouth, the woman in question chewed once and then spit out the chocolate into her napkin, apparently deciding in that moment that the chocolate, if fully consumed, would not be worth the calories.

Jodi, the Mannersmith, went on to explain, "For treats and sweets, you should taste them first and decide if they are worthy..."  Then if they pass your taste test, go ahead and eat it, but if they do not, you can kindly refuse and not gross anyone out!
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Basic Chocolate Tasting

Today we're going to quickly explore a method for tasting chocolate.  I'd like you to have two chocolate bars ready.  These should both be milk chocolate bars or both dark chocolate bars.  You can pick different brands or pick the same brand with different percentages of chocolate content.  We want to make sure you'll taste sufficient differences.

Now that you have your chocolate ready, you'll need to pick an appropriate time and place to do the tasting.  Well, I'm not really sure there's a bad time or place to eat chocolate, but some times and places are better than others to experience the best results.
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Welcome to the CUO Blog

Hello and welcome to our blog...

Chocolate University Online is dedicated to chocolate lovers who want to learn more about their favorite food.

As this blog post is being written, our new website is about to be launched.  Be sure to take a look at our course offerings, our store items, and get our free ebook. 
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