About Us
First of all, I ask you to be patient with me as this is my first ever attempt at creating a website. That's why I have included contact information, so I can receive suggestions and comments from you. I started this site simply because I, like many others, LOVE chocolate. I wanted to place as much as I could find on Canadian Chocolate makers, all in one place. I knew that if I tried to include ALL chocolatiers and chocolate companies in the world, I wouldn't have enough room for them all, therefore I decided to focus on Canada's top chocolates and Chocolatiers. At canadianchocolate.net, our mission is to bring you the best information, values and variety available on the World Wide Web from the most popular sites. Our site has been designed for convenience and ease of navigation to make it easy to shop online. We are committed to providing our customers with products and services from the most reliable and reputable online shopping sites. We hope you enjoy your visit and return to Canadianchocolate.net often! Thank you!
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I would just like to give you a little information about one Canadian Chocolatier in particular,Bernard Callebaut. I first heard about Callebaut Chocolates while living in Lethbridge ,Alberta. There was a quaint little chocolate shop downtown and we stepped in to check it out. Amazing chocolates, so many flavours. We bought some for ourselves and some to ship back home as gifts!
Bernard is devoted to chocolate. He relishes it. Savours it. Takes exquisite delight in sharing it. Because creating chocolate is not just his work. It’s his calling.
He grew up in the chocolate business. His family’s home in Belgium was next to the chocolate factory founded in 1911 by his great-grandfather. Bernard could, and often did, jump out of his bedroom window and into a factory window.
Always an innovator, Bernard carried the family tradition to the New World. In Calgary, Alberta, Canada, Bernard has been crafting delectable chocolates since 1983. His creations have been applauded by chocolatiers, chefs, authors, editors, gastronomes, and chocolate lovers around the globe.
It's been over twenty-five years since Bernard packed his chocolate makers hat and came to Canada, and he hasn't looked back since. Today the company operates twenty-nine stores in Canada, two in the United States and has distribution channels within Japan. In Calgary alone Bernard boasts nine stores. The flagship store, factory and corporate headquarters is on Macleod Trail in Calgary, one of the cities oldest and busiest streets. Bernard is a bit like Macleod Trail himself, very busy, very popular, and VERY Calgarian. The city has adopted him as one of their own and he couldn't be more proud.
http://www.bernardcallebaut.com/users/folder.aspCHOCOLATE NEWS!!
VERS-CHEZ-LES-BLANC, Switzerland—For people with high levels of anxiety, dark chocolate might be the ticket to a less-stressed life. According to research from the Nestlé Research Center, a daily serving of 40 grams of dark chocolate might help people with anxiety improve their metabolism and improve gut microflora while reducing stress. The results of this study were published in the Journal of Proteome Research.
The results of the study showed that metabolic improvements largely came from a reduction in stress. Subjects consumed 40 grams of chocolate daily for two weeks. Subsequently, they showed “decreased levels of stress hormones and metabolites from pathogenic bacteria,” noted Serge Rezzi, Ph.D., head of the Metabonomics and Biomarkers Group, Nestlé Research Center.
This led the researchers to suggest that dietary changes can help alter people’s metabolic status and improve health over the long term.
In news that's sure to delight chocolate lovers, a Harvard study finds that a couple of squares of dark chocolate a day might reduce the risk of a hemorrhagic stroke, by 52 percent.
Unfortunately for chocolate fans, though, the same research also found that chocolate does not appear to have a protective benefit for the most common type of stroke.
People who have a stroke have either an ischemic or a hemorrhagic stroke. An ischemic stroke occurs when a blood vessel that supplies blood to the brain becomes blocked, either partially or completely. This type of stroke accounts for about 80 percent of all strokes, according to the U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Hemorrhagic strokes, which occur when a blood vessel in the brain bursts and bleeds into the brain, make up about 20 percent of all strokes.
"There are several possible mechanisms, but the effect of rich cocoa on cardiovascular health seems to be through its effect on blood pressure, and the capacity to improve the flexibility of the blood vessels," said study author Dr. Martin Lajous, a doctoral candidate at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.
"In the context of an appropriate intake, eating small amounts of cocoa could be beneficial," Lajous said. But Lajous added that "it's difficult to understand why it appears to just benefit hemorrhagic stroke."
The benefit attributed to cocoa stems from substances it contains known as flavonoids, which are believed to help protect against certain cardiovascular disease risk factors, such as blood pressure and blood clotting.
VIENNA, Austria — Eating dark chocolate reduces damage to the blood vessels of cirrhotic patients and also lowers blood pressure in the liver, according to new research presented at the International Liver Congress 2010, the Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Liver in Vienna.
Dark chocolate contains potent antioxidants that reduce the post-prandial blood pressure in the liver associated with damaged liver blood vessels. The data also showed that eating dark chocolate may exert additional beneficial effects throughout the whole body. In comparison, white chocolate, which contains no beneficial phytochemicals, did not result in the same effects.
In the study 21 cirrhotic patients with end stage liver disease were randomized to receive a standard liquid meal. Ten patients received the liquid meal containing dark chocolate (containing 85% cocoa, 0.55g of dark chocolate/Kg of body weight) while 11 patients received the liquid meal containing white chocolate which is devoid of cocoa flavonoids (antioxidant properties) according to body weight. HVPG, arterial pressure and portal blood flow (PBF) were measured at baseline and 30 minutes after meal administration, using a US-Doppler.
Both meals caused a highly significant but similar increase in portal blood flow with a +24% increase in dark chocolate compared to +34% in those patients who received white chocolate. Interestingly, post-prandial hyperaemia was accompanied by an increase in HVPG resulting in a statistically significant increase (17.3±3.6mmHg to 19.1±2.6mmHg, p=0.07) for those patients eating dark chocolate and those receiving white chocolate (16.0±4.7mmHg to 19.7±4.1mmHg, p=0.003). Post-prandial increase in HVPG was markedly reduced in patients receiving dark chocolate (+10.3±16.3% vs +26.3±12.7%, p=0.02).
While just eating chocolate is enough to put most of us in a good frame of mind, latest research suggests "odour du chocolat" – just the smell of it – can improve your mood.
This happy news comes from the Human Olfaction Laboratory at Middlesex University, where Neil Martin, a reader in psychology, investigates the effects of room smells on human behaviour. In his laboratory Martin has a square box called an AromaCube, which heats up "odorants" and percolates the smell around the room.
From that box, he discovered the power of chocolate in an experiment where he filled rooms with three smells, one of chocolate, a "malodour" of machine oil, which most people find unpleasant, and a lemony, pleasant-but-alerting odour, then monitored testers' moods.
"The aim was to compare the effects of pleasant and unpleasant ambient odours on stress, anxiety, depression and mood," Martin explains. "And whilst we're still continuing the experiment, so far it seems that the smell of chocolate really does make people less stressed and anxious, and more relaxed."
Chocoholics will also be pleased to hear about some of Martin's earlier research. "In another study we looked at the effect of chocolate on brain activity," he says. "We presented people with a range of smells, some artificial food odours and some real food odours, with both samples including chocolate." Martin used EEG (electroencephalography) technology to record his participants' brain waves as they sniffed the air, and found that in both experiments, the chocolate smell consistently led to a reduction in a particular type of brain activity called theta, which is thought to be an index of attentiveness. "Theta levels dropped significantly across both indexes when testers smelled chocolate."
The experiment also shows there is no need for chocolate snobbery. "I know connoisseurs say posh chocolate, with a higher cocoa content, is better for your health, and it might be in some ways, but when it comes to the smell of chocolate and its resultant relaxing effect, we found it was the same however much milk the bar contains," Martin says.
