History Of Chocolate - Anita

• Chocolate is a food preparation in the form of a paste or solid block.
• Chocolate comes from cocoa beans that were grown and still growing in South America 100 million years ago.
• Cocoa beans have many small beans inside of them which are filled with Vitamin C and magnesium.
• By around 20,00 BC, people in Central America (modern Mexico) were grinding up the beans and making them into a hot or cold spicy chocolate drink with vanilla or chili peppers in it or a sort of spicy porridge with corn and chilies in it. 
• During the 1400s AD, the Aztec Empire controlled most of Central America. The Aztec government made people pay a lot of their taxes in cocoa beans, because they were expensive and you could store them for a long time.