This morning I met Jim Walsh for a cup of coffee and as he began to tell me about his Los Angeles-based company Intentional Chocolate, it made me wonder why it is that food cooked with care and love tastes so good. After all, there’s nothing more delicious than chicken soup made especially for someone with a cold, or home-baked chocolate chip cookies received as a gift.

I think we all know intuitively that intentions can make or break an experience. With that in mind, Walsh set out to infuse his new chocolate line with a very specific intention: “Whomever consumes this chocolate will manifest optimal health and function at physical, emotional and mental levels, and in particular will enjoy an increased sense of energy, vigor and well being.”

But Walsh, a successful businessman who has launched several products and companies (including Hawaiian Vintage Chocolate, which was the first to grow cacao domestically), took this idea one step further. He literally enlisted monks from the Deer Park Buddhist Center in Wisconsin (including the venerable Geshe Sopa), and had them use their powers of meditation to “imprint” this intention into his products.

Then, with the help of Dean Radin, a scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, he conducted a double-blind, randomized, placebo controlled experiment that proved the mood elevating properties of chocolate were enhanced by this intention and published the findings in the peer-reviewed publication Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing.

This afternoon I drank a cup of Intentional Dark Hot Chocolate and enjoyed the hint of vanilla and cinnamon in the warm elixir. I felt good knowing 10 percent of net proceeds from sales of International Chocolate will go to the Deer Park Buddhist Center and it was fun to think that eating Intentional truffles or baking with Intentional pistoles would not only make me feel good, it might just spread a little joy.