Chocolate used to be simple -- sweet, tasty candy. Sure, some people preferred "dark chocolate" to normal "milk chocolate," and then of course there was "white chocolate," which some people claimed wasn't even chocolate (more on that later). But still, choices were relatively easy to make.

After all, chocolate seems like a fairly straightforward substance -- in its pure form it is made by grinding and processing the seeds of the cacao tree.

There are a lot of steps involved in the process, but to make a chocolate bar, the only ingredients you need are the cacao seeds, which also contain cocoa butter (i.e., chocolate fat), some sugar, probably some soy lecithin to help emulsify the fat, and a little vanilla to round out the flavor.

		Double truffle Mon Aimee Chocolat in the Strip District has a limited number of special truffles made by local chocolatier Barbara Ferguson of Fraiche Confections. A chocolate truffle made from single origin 65 percent E. Guittard Colombian dark chocolate is infused with real black truffle shavings and a touch of white truffle oil and is topped with gold leaf. The truffles are $2.50 and availability is limited. For more information, call 412-395-0022.

Yet today, buying a chocolate bar can seem like the combined act of supporting a political cause, reading a travel magazine and taking a health supplement.

Forget milk, dark and white. Today your chocolate bar might be labeled with place names like Venezuela or Ecuador, or even types of cacao beans such as Criollo, Trinitario or Porcelana. El Rey's Apamate Bar is a single bean origin bar, because it's made entirely from Caranero Superior beans grown in the north-central region of Venezuela. These types of varietal chocolate stress the connection between the place where the beans are grown, the type of bean and the taste of the chocolate.

While mass-produced, lower-quality bars are generally blended both for consistency and to mask flaws, some artisan blended bars use careful blending to create complex, consistent taste profiles. E. Guittard's Nocturne bar contains a blend of about seven different types of beans from Central and South America, Africa and Asia.

	You say cacao ... So which is it? Cacao or cocoa? Actually, there isn't really a difference. Though "cocoa" probably was the result of a spelling error by an English trader hundreds of years ago, both spellings are acceptable, and there's no universally accepted difference in meaning. A logical rule that helps distinguish between products is to use "cacao" when referring to the tree, the bean, and the liquor, and to use "cocoa" when referring to derivatives of the cacao bean, such as cocoa butter or cocoa powder. -- China Millman

Organizations that certify chocolate and other natural products based on ethics believe that consumers are willing to pay more for such products or to choose them over other products without the same certification.

Equal Exchange and The Rainforest Alliance certify products using similar social, economic and environmental criteria. Equal Exchange works through Fair Trade certification, so products will be labeled with both symbols.

Fair Trade organizations' core mission is to cut out the middlemen that have traditionally regulated the purchase of natural goods (such as the coffee and cacao boards) and pass on the savings to producers, creating better living conditions for farmers while maintaining a fair price for consumers.

The Rainforest Alliance works with a more diverse group of producers and has a stronger focus on preserving biodiversity, but like Fair Trade, it also works to ensure that cacao workers make a living wage while addressing issues of environmental sustainability.

Chocolate can also be certified organic, meaning that the ingredients in the chocolate were grown without the use of pesticides or certain other agricultural techniques that can harm the environment. Organic chocolate has positive implications for the health of workers and communities as well.

You may have noticed recently that commercial chocolate products are popping up with health claims, such as "natural source of cocoa flavanols." Recent research has suggested that chocolate has high levels of beneficial antioxidants, compounds that protect cells against damage from free radicals. Even better, cacao contains a special kind of antioxidant called flavanols that seem to have benefits ranging from reducing atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) to discouraging the formation of tumors. But you should think (and look) carefully before adding a daily bar to your diet.

Antioxidants are present at their highest concentration in the cacao bean.

Processing probably decreases the amount of antioxidants, but the amount of antioxidants you're eating depends primarily on the cacao content, expressed as a percentage.

A 70 percent bar of dark chocolate means that 70 percent of the bar is made up of chocolate, and 30 percent is mostly sugar plus any other flavorings. In a 40 percent milk chocolate bar, 60 percent of the bar is sugar and milk solids.

White chocolate is made from cocoa butter, sugar, milk solids and flavorings such as vanilla. Since it doesn't contain any actual cacao mass, just cocoa butter, some people don't consider it chocolate, and in some countries it can't be called chocolate. It also doesn't contain any antioxidants.

In the United States, federal rules say milk chocolate must be a minimum of 10 percent cacao mass (also known as cacao liquor); chocolate with a minimum of 15 percent cacao mass can be labeled as sweet chocolate or dark chocolate, and bittersweet chocolate must have a minimum of 35 percent cacao mass.

Chocolate bars that are not labeled with specific percentages are unlikely to have much more cacao than the legal minimum. These rules mean that a bar labeled as "dark chocolate" might be almost 85 percent sugar! Not only does this bar have a miniscule amount of antioxidants, it also doesn't taste much like chocolate.

Many researchers have suggested that chocolate must have a minimum of 75 percent cacao mass for the antioxidants to have a beneficial effect.

Cacao nibs -- lightly toasted, chopped up cacao beans -- are the best source for these antioxidants, because they are the least processed edible form of chocolate. They are often added to bars and baked goods.

Research also suggests that milk will keep your body from being able to absorb the antioxidants in chocolate, so eating milk chocolate or drinking milk with your chocolate would reduce any health benefits, irrespective of the cacao content. Also, Dutched (or Dutch process) cocoa powder (cocoa powder treated with an alkaline solution that makes it darker and milder in flavor) seems to have a significantly lower quantity of antioxidants.

Looking for an inexpensive bar of high quality dark chocolate? Look for a bar without a fancy pedigree but with a labeled percentage of at least 70 percent -- though slightly lower than the ideal percentage, this compromise will make it much easier to find an affordable, delicious bar. Then check the ingredients label.

Cocoa butter should be the only kind of fat listed in the ingredients -- beware of partially hydrogenated soybean oil. You might also want to make sure that the bar is made with natural vanilla, whether it's in the form of an extract, natural vanilla flavoring, or whole ground vanilla beans, just not vanillin, a synthetic substitute that is much cheaper and lacks the complexity of flavor of true vanilla. Lindt's Excellence 70 percent or 85 percent bars are good examples.

There are a lot of reasons for picking one bar of chocolate over another. But there's still one variable that trumps the rest: Which chocolate do you like the best? Use the labels as a guide to help you discover new, delicious types of chocolate. Whether you crave an 85 percent chocolate made from Venezuelan Criollo beans or that familiar foil-wrapped "kiss," the best reason to eat chocolate is that it brings you pleasure.