Why chocolate was delicious?

Edinburgh - Who likes chocolate? Guaranteed many hands outstretched.

Chocolate is a favorite snack of the world, both to eat in the form of chocolate bars, or be perisa other foods such as candy or milk. Quoted confectionerynews.com, in the world's largest cocoa producer countries, Switzerland, the average population even eat 9 kg of chocolate per year! Not only that, no further explanation why chocolate is so tasty and even 'collecting'. Apparently, the genetic changes responsible cokelatlah.

Cocoa plant roots show, these plants have a broad genetic diversity in the wild, more than previously estimated.

"We got directions for the first time, that the source of chocolate, Theobroma cacao, is a type of ancient plant species in the Amazon," said study leader, James Richardson, a tropical plant botanists at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Scotland, told Live Science.

Chocolate comes from the cacao plant pods that grow on the tree Theobroma cacao. On the way from seed to chocolate bars that melt in the mouth, cocoa through various stages, including fermentation, drying and pemangganggan flesh of the fruit, cocoa grinding slabs, making extracts, and create cocoa butter mixed with milk and sugar.

Unfortunately, the majority of the cacao tree, which grows to the

industry billions of dollars world, are genetically very similar

The problem is, plants that are genetically homogeneous turns populations vulnerable to catastrophic collapse. For example, bananas are currently consumed in the world, Cavendish varieties, recently appeared on the surface after the final cultivar, Gros Michel, was almost erased by a soil fungus.

However, unlike the cacao tree, a banana tree is a clone of each other, coming from only one plant in Southeast Asia.

In the current study, researchers analyzed the genome of the cacao tree. They discovered that the genus Theobrama a deviation from its closest cousin, Herrania, which more or less going from 12.7 million a year ago, right around the time of the Andes Mountains began to form rising.

The species responsible for a plant that can be eaten appeared millions of years later, and can be found on both sides of the Andes since the mountains are not high enough to avoid the spread of the tree. Some scientists also proved that Herrania and Theobroma could be separated into two species more precisely 5 million years ago, based on the geological period that affect the diversification of species.

The fact that cocoa comes from South America millions of years ago became a surprise.

"After 10 million years of evolution, we should not be surprised to again see a number besat variation in the species, some of which may have an unusual taste, or the type of disease resistance. Varieties that could contribute to enhancing the development of the chocolate industry," said Richardson ,

The new discovery is the hope that there bersumbunyi cocoa trees in the Amazon jungle there, who have a genetic variation that can combat the disease in the future.

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