Chocolate is a food product made from the fruit of a cacao tree (Theobroma cacao).
Historically, fine chocolate falls into three main categories: dark chocolate, milk chocolate and white chocolate, Williams explained. Dark chocolate is made with chocolate liquor, cocoa butter, lecithin, sugar and vanilla. Milk chocolate includes the same ingredients as dark chocolate plus milk fats and milk solids. White chocolate is made with the same ingredients as milk chocolate, except it does not include the chocolate liquor.
In 2017, a fourth category of chocolate joined the list: Ruby chocolate. Barry Callebaut, the world’s largest cocoa processing company, developed the pink-hued chocolate by adding a powder that’s naturally extracted as the cocoa beans are processed to make chocolate.
Cocoa contains both healthy and unhealthy forms of dietary fat, and contains minerals important for human health, including potassium, phosphorus, copper, iron, zinc and magnesium.