**1.2 Effect of cooking on Chinese chestnuts**

The nutritional content of six cultivars of Cannabis sativa was thoroughly measured, including starch, energy, fat & fibre [11], crude protein, amino acids, phenolic phytochemicals [12], minerals, sugars, antioxidant carotenoids and other vitamins [1, 3] after cooking during four major stages of industrial processing (fresh, after storing for three months at ±0°C and maintaining the relative humidity at 90%, after industrial peeling through flame or fire at 800–1000°C, and after freezing in a tunnel with CO2 flow at −65°C [1, 3].

According to a study [13], the vitamin C content of fresh chestnuts ranged from 400 to 693 mg/kg dry weight for several European cultivars. The boiling and roasting processes resulted in significant reductions of 25–54% and 2–77%, respectively. A typical traditional way for preparing Chinese chestnuts is to either fry them shelled with other ingredients (tang chao li zi) or unshelled with sugar. In East Asia, a sort of

*Therapeutic Potential of Chocolate Coated Chinese Chestnut (A Nut Cum Fruit) DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.108976*

#### **Figure 2.**

*Pharmacological activities of Chinese chestnuts [6–8].*

chestnut kernel that has been processed industrially and packaged is currently very popular and is typically cooked by boiling.

Even though a fresh chestnut's kernel does not smell strongly, after being thermally processed, it has a strong flavour. The flavour extract of boiled and roasted Chinese chestnuts, respectively, yielded a total of 30 to 33 components, including hydrocarbons, ketones, alcohols, aldehydes, furans, pyranone, and acids [14]. Important aroma impact components from roasted Italian chestnuts include monoterpenes and derivatives of butane, pentane, hexane, and heptane [15].

#### **1.3 Dark chocolate**

One of the roasted and ground cocoa products is chocolate. It is manufactured in block, paste, or liquid form and added to products to improve the flavour of that product. It has a lot of calories and a healthy amount of fat. However, dark chocolate, one form of chocolate, is thought to be highly healthy to eat. Dark or black chocolates can be eaten as it is, or used in recipes, for which somewhat thicker-packed bars are sold in market. The seeds of the tropical tree Theobroma cacao are used to make raw or processed foods, including dark chocolate, which has been a popular food for centuries. Depending on how

#### **Figure 3.** *Health benefits of dark chocolate.*

much cocoa butter is added to the components, it is typically bitter or semisweet. Some of the significant health advantages of eating dark chocolate are depicted in **Figure 3**. Many healthful components that are good for the body are found in dark chocolate. Vitamins A, B1, C, D, and E are all present in abundance in compounds found in chocolate. Additionally, chocolate contains the antioxidants phenol and flavonoids, as well as minerals like calcium, potassium, iron, omega 3 and 6, and high magnesium, which aid to somewhat lessen premenstrual symptoms and menstrual pain [16].
