The cocoa bean is composed chiefly of fat, this ingredient amounting to fully 50 percent and often a larger percentage of the total weight. The next most important ingredient is the protein or nitrogenous elements, including the theobromin and caffein, which exist in small quantities in the bean. Starches and sugars together form from 20 to 25 percent of the weight of the bean. In round numbers the ash amounts to 4 percent and the theobromin to about 1 percent. Various analysts, however, give very wide differences in the content of theobromin, some rising to as much as 2 1/2 percent and others falling to as little as five-tenths of 1 percent. From the above data it will be seen that chocolate has a real food value.

The chief food value of the cocoa bean resides of course in the fat. Owing to the high calorific power of fat, cocoa furnishes a very large amount of heat and energy. The digestible protein and the starch and sugar add no mean value to cocoa as a food. Inasmuch as the whole mass is mixed with the drink, all of the nutrient portions become available for the sustenance of the body. If in the preparation of the beverage milk and sugar are added, the food value, of course, is increased to that degree. Theobromin, which is the principal active alkaloid of the cacao bean, is much less objectionable in foods than its first cousin, caffein. Theobromin and its isomer, theophyllin, do not exert so powerful a stimulating influence as caffein, and hence for this reason cocoa is preferable to tea or coffee.