Chocolate Is Healthy

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

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