Chocolate Is Healthy

The Alternative Health Journal discusses how alcohol, coffee and chocolate benefit our health.  For example, alcohol consumed in moderation has been known to increase the amount of HDL, or, “good” cholesterol in the body.  It also may help to protect the body from the risk of stroke.  For coffee-lovers, new studies are showing that people who consume one cup of coffee per day have a lower risk of heart disease.  Chocolate’s health benefits are also discussed:

“Harvard Researchers found that chocolate increases blood flow through the cerebral arteries and there have been countless studies that indicate that dark chocolate is good for relaxing blood vessels and is also helpful for the heart. Chocolate is high in calories, so again, just as is the case with alcohol, moderation is the key. And remember, for the most health benefits choose the dark variety over milk chocolate.”

Julie Pech ate chocolate every day for 18 months, all in the name of health research. She compared brands, one after another, as many varieties and brands from around the world as possible. She stocked her Littleton home with high-octane chocolate, up to 50 pounds stashed in cupboards: cacao beans and cocoa nibs–raw-chocolate chips–Ghirardelli and Dagoba and Valor, always testing and tasting. Now she’s a self-described chocolate therapist, dispensing recommendations on how chocolate can help a variety of ills through her book, The Chocolate Therapist: A User’s Guide to the Extraordinary Health Benefits of Chocolate (Trafford Publishing)

… Trend-watchers are focused on the healing powers of chocolate, according to a market research report on the premium chocolate industry released in March … These experts predict the next big growth area will be cocoa and drinking chocolate. And why not? A mug of natural cocoa has nearly twice the antioxidants of a glass of red wine, two to three times more than green tea, and up to five times that of black tea … but, like good and bad cholesterol, there’s good and bad chocolate. The nutritional value is in the cocoa, so the healthy stuff is dark chocolate with a minimum of 50 percent cocoa solids …

Her [Pech] mission, she says, is education. “I’m not saying eat chocolate cake, candy bars and cookies, pigging out on chocolate all day long,” she says. “You have to control it. One good thing about eating quality chocolate, when you eat the good stuff you don’t need a lot of it to satisfy your craving.”

–Colleen O’Connor, Denver Post 05/26/2007

Is dark chocolate really healthy for you? It’s been advertised as being good for us, but it can be hard to tell what’s real and what’s not. If you’re not sure whether the benefits you’ve heard about are really available from chocolate, here are some of the basics to help you decide.

Dark chocolate’s primary benefit comes from flavonoids, a type of substance that falls under the umbrella of antioxidants. Many of the diseases we suffer from can be caused or aggravated by oxidant damage to our cells. Antioxidants can help reduce these problems, including some of the effects of aging, by preventing the completion of the oxidant reaction.

They capture damaging free radicals, and can be very beneficial to us. Some foods have more antioxidants than others. For instance, while they’re present in strawberries, you’ll find almost eight times as much of these chemicals in dark chocolate. Chocolate also has the ability to reduce blood pressure, since it contains nitric oxide, and may help with internal hormonal balances.

It’s also been said that a small bar of chocolate daily can be good for your heart. That’s because of the aforementioned blood pressure benefits, and also the fact that it can help reduce LDL (bad) cholesterol as much as ten percent. Chocolate also stimulates the production of endorphins and serotonin, contains caffeine, theobromine and other stimulants, and tastes good. That means it has a lot of appeal.

The downsides are that it takes a lot of chocolate to have a big effect, and chocolate is a fairly fatty food. A third of the fats in chocolate are monounsaturated, and two thirds are saturated and able to affect your cholesterol. Another problem is that this high fat content, combined with the sugar in chocolate, means weight gain is a possibility if you eat too much.

Studies have used about three and a half ounces of dark chocolate each day to determine its benefits. That translates into about four hundred calories. While that might not sound like much, consider that it’s the same as eating two small doughnuts, and that an extra four hundred calories per day could result in a gain of almost a pound a week.

That means that if you’re eating a lot of chocolate to get its benefits, you’ll need to increase your activity level and adjust your diet accordingly to avoid weight gain. To keep from eating too much, take the time to taste and appreciate chocolate every time your consume it. These health benefits are also available only from dark chocolate with sixty-five percent or higher levels of cocoa.

Milk chocolate has much lower cocoa content and can’t offer those health benefits, and white chocolate contains no cocoa at all. Chocolate bars made of pure chocolate or chocolate with minimal flavorings are the best choice. Avoid nougat, caramel, and similar fillings, which can reduce the benefits chocolate is offering.

Chris loves to write about all kinds of food particularly chocolates. Find out more about Dark Chocolates by visiting http://www.ultimatechocolateshoppe.com

It is rumored in some quarters that chocolate is unhealthy. It is said the high-calorie contents will add to excess body fat and clog arteries. There is good news for chocolate lovers! Chocolate in moderation has many health benefits.

Chocolate is so delicious that it is hard to believe it has any kind of health benefit. Yet in chocolate there are vitamins essential for our body’s proper functioning. The same chocolate that has a delicious velvety texture also contains calcium, potassium, iron, vitamin A, vitamin B1, vitamin C, vitamin D, and vitamin E. And this is not the full extent of it. Eating chocolate may help reduce the risk of heart disease. High blood pressure is lessened as well because the cocoa in chocolate contains flavonoids.

These flavonoids help to keep fat from clogging the arteries. This is a great thing for those who worry about blood clots. Flavonoids also have antioxidants, which are linked to wonderful health effects like reduced cancer risk.

Chocolate also contains nitric oxide. Nitric oxide helps maintain blood pressured and a healthy heart. There is a lot of research being done to strengthen and understand this link. The chocolate benefits do not stop there. Studies show the blood thinning effects are similar to that of a low dose of aspirin. This contributes to free flowing blood less likely to clot. (But chocolate should not be considered a substitute for aspirin which has a longer lasting effect.)

In addition to blood and heart benefits many find that eating chocolate increases positive aspects of their day. Alertness and happiness are increased and many find a pain reducing benefit as well. Theobromine, caffeine, tyramine, and phenylethylamine (also found in chocolate) can reduce fatigue and give people the extra boost they need to get through the day. There are even cannabinoids that give people a sort of safe and happy feeling.

The antioxidant research is probably what wins most people over to the health benefits of chocolate. These antioxidants help to stop the effects of free radicals. Antioxidants can also be found in many fruits and vegetables.

The evidence cited above does not mean that everyone should eat buckets full of chocolate. Depending on how it is prepared, it can be high in fat and calories and lead to an ever-expanding waistline. Even so, the benefits speak for themselves!

Finding health in a food that has always been deemed as “junk” is quite refreshing. There are many who will be thrilled at the news that their beloved treat can increase heart health and possibly even add years to life. Go eat a nice bar of dark chocolate to celebrate!

For fun tips on how to serve chocolate visit Gourmet Chocolate Tips. W.J. Rayment is the executive editor of InDepthInfo.

Can we really eat dark chocolate for health? The last couple of years have seen magazines, television and the internet inundated the health benefits, or lack thereof, of eating dark chocolate. The problem with most of these is that they place all dark chocolate into one group, which is a dangerous assumption. If you go to the grocery and load up on Hershey’s Special Dark, expecting to eat a bar a day, lower your blood pressure and lose weight, you are likely to be severely disappointed. If you choose your dark chocolate wisely, you are likely to be very pleased with the results.

First of all, as with all foods, pay attention to the ingredient and nutrition list. If there’s more refined sugar than cocoa, then there’s probably not a lot of benefit there. The sad truth is that most commercial chocolate bars contain very little actual chocolate, and with truth in advertising should only be billed as chocolate flavored. The type of fat that is used to make the chocolate creamy is also important. If it’s not cocoa butter, then consider it inferior. Most commercial chocolate uses vegetable oils, or even waxes, to give the impression of “creaminess” when it’s actually just a slick oily or waxy effect. Even if they use milk fat, which does give it a nice creaminess, the milk fat carries it’s own set of health risks. Once you have eaten good quality dark chocolate that uses only cocoa butter as fat, you will easily tell the difference when you go back to the inferior chocolate. The type of sweetener used is also very important. Preferably you find a natural, unrefined sweetener such as raw cane sugar or other organic sugar. These natural sweeteners do not spike blood sugar in the way refined sugars do.

So, if you just love chocolate and want to eat it purely for pleasure, have no weight or health concerns, and are not into the “all natural” movement, then just go out there and buy what tastes good to you. But, if you are serious about reaping the health benefits of chocolate or have a specific health challenge you would like to address with this natural healer, then the most important factor of consuming it is that it be raw, natural, unprocessed. And even most quality chocolate companies use processed, alkalized and roasted cocoa. This processing strips up to 80% of the natural nutrition that cocoa starts with, but makes it easier to use less quality ingredients and still have something people will eat. Lets face it, 100% all natural cocoa is bitter beyond what most people are willing to tolerate. It’s certainly not what most of us think of as “decadent”. Only a few companies are trying it, and even fewer are succeeding. If you’ve already heard this and have been busily sampling the “organic” and “antioxidant” choices on your store shelves, you have discovered that. I know I have. If I had back the money spent on the bars I’ve bought, only to ditch them after the first bite, well, I’d be at least a little richer. So I try to spend my chocolate dollars wisely to get the most bang for my buck. I buy chocolate that uses cold pressed cocoa and all natural ingredients, preferably mixed with fruits and berries as sweeteners and cocoa butter for creaminess. And I have seen the benefits of doing this reflected in my health.

For more information on what makes chocolate truly healthy, ask the expert, Dr. Steve Warren, at http://mydrchocolate.com