It's America's favorite flavor. We eat over three and a half billion pounds of it each year. It satiated the ancients and built modern-day empires. From the equatorial fields, to the factories of moguls, and the kitchens of artisans. By the bar, by the vat, or by the tanker. At the heart of this giant industry is a little magic bean that's been touted as an energizer, aphrodisiac...and cure-all. Annual sales of chocolate in the U.S. top $13 billion. That's almost twice the total sales of all non-chocolate candy items. The average American consumes 12 pounds per year. But most people, who eat it, don't think about where it comes from. Modern Marvels will take the audience through the whole complicated chocolate making process - from bean to bar, from seed to sweet. Watch as candy-makers create some of our favorites...colorful M&Ms by the millions made at Mars; decadent truffles filled at Lindt; and those chocolate bunnies we all love at Easter molded by R.M. Palmer. We'll visit a working cacao bean farm in Central America for a demonstration of the hand harvesting techniques that have remained essentially unchanged for centuries. Then, we'll follow the beans to San Francisco's Guittard Chocolate, suppliers of large quantities of solid and liquid chocolate to some of America's best confectioners. They'll show us the step-by-step process that turns beans into cocoa heaven. A chocolate history lesson will reveal how the Maya and Aztecs revered the first chocolate beverage (Montezuma reportedly drank 50 goblets a day!) and we'll learn how to make it the really old-fashioned way from restaurant owner Soledad Lopez, of Aztec descent. A visit to NYC's chocolate mecca - Max Brenner's Chocolate by the Bald Man - will show how "extreme" chocoholics have created an entire culture around the little brown bean. Imagine grabbing a slice of chocolate pizza, or having a syringe full of gooey chocolate poured right into your mouth! And to the delight of those who indulge, this awesome edible is now even good for you - full of antioxidants, cholesterol-lowering polyphenols, and heart-healthy flavonols. Step aside spinach. All hail the wonder food of chocolate...on Modern Marvels!
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