Bitter Sweet Chocolates

Have you ever walk past a duty free shop full of chocolates on its shelf and tried hard to resist the temptation of getting your hands on this delicacy that would melt in your mouth, letting you savor every bit of its taste? In this increasingly health conscious society, researchers have come up with results that are putting a stop to us eating this and that. The good news here is that chocolates may just have been spared the similar fate. However, stop if you are not heading for the chocolate bars in your fridge as it appears that studies have pinpointed that only dark chocolates are not so detrimental to our health.

There were two studies that have shown almost similar results pertaining to dark chocolates. The first one was published in ¡°Heart¡± magazine where study subjects were asked to abstain from eating foods rich in antioxidants for 24 hours and were instead given 40g of chocolate to eat. After 2 hours, ultrasound scans on the participants revealed positive results with the dark chocolate noted to improve the smoothness of the arterial flow. The second one was done by researchers in the University of L¡¯ Aquila where they too found that eating 100g of chocolates each day for 15 days lowered blood pressure.

So what is dark chocolates and what is inside that enables it to have an almost miracle effect? Dark chocolate is made from cocoa (the solids from the cocoa bean), cocoa butter (the fat component) and sugar. Dark chocolate is actually chocolate without milk. The U.S. government called this sweet chocolate. Different rules in different countries specify the minimum amount of chocolate solids that is required in dark chocolates. Essentially it also contains cocoa phenols. However, most dark chocolates in the market are usually approximately made up of 74% of cocoa solids. I personally however love the ones that are made up of approximately 85% cocoa solids as they tend to have a stronger aroma even when wrapped in tightly in their aluminum foils.

Essentially dark chocolates contain cocoa phenols and these are the compounds that are known to have antioxidant properties. Antioxidants have been known to able to prevent LDL or bad cholesterol oxidation which will then contribute to plaque build-up, hence clogging up our arteries. All these however do not mean that you can gulp in bars after bars of dark chocolate.

As in most instances in life, moderation is the key to everything. Do not forget that for all the benefits that phenols can bring, dark chocolates still contain fat and sugar. The fat component of chocolates, the cocoa butter is actually made up of saturated fats although studies so far have not shown consuming cocoa butter to raise our bodies LDL cholesterol levels.

So the take home message here is if you are a chocolate lover, dark chocolate is probably better for you although dark chocolate is often an acquired taste. However, eat in moderation and cut back on other foods that can cause weight gain. If you are not a chocolate lover, just like in the case of red wine which also has similar antioxidants to dark chocolate, do not start eating dark chocolate now. Fruits and vegetables contain sufficient amount of antioxidant as well, so you should increase the proportion of those foods in your daily diet. Otherwise, you can always add a teaspoon of bitter cocoa powder to your low fat milk to obtain the benefits of dark chocolate.