AUTHOR
CHOCOLATE AND ITS MANY HEALTH BENEFITS
Tim shares how you can make chocolate a healthy part of your diet .
Chocolate . It ’ s sweet , it ’ s tasty – we desire and crave it . And in case you were looking for any more valid reasons to eat it , scientific research now confirms that it can be good for you . Read on to learn about the heart , exercise and brain health benefits of chocolate .
What is in chocolate ?
Chocolate is made from the beans of the Cacao tree . The beans are roasted and ground to make cocoa liquor ( which is about 50 % fat in the form of cocoa butter ). Once the cocoa butter is removed , solid cocoa powder is left .
Milk chocolate has milk and sugar added to a blend of cocoa powder and cocoa butter , so it has less cocoa content than dark chocolate . Dark chocolate has typically two to three times more cocoa than milk chocolate and typically has less sugar . Then there is white chocolate , which isn ’ t really ‘ chocolate ’ ( as it only uses the cocoa butter , plus a lot of sugar and no cocoa powder ).
Health benefits of chocolate
While chocolate is a good source of protein , magnesium , calcium and potassium and some vitamins such as riboflavin and vitamin E , these are nutrients we can easily get from other foods . When we ’ re looking at health benefits , dark chocolate is the star of the show .
Dark chocolate is a rich source of flavanols , which are potent antioxidants that can have favourable effects on the heart and blood vessels . It ’ s the cocoa in chocolate that ’ s the source of these flavanols – so dark chocolate contains much more flavanols than milk chocolate . Apples , grapes , red wine and tea are also rich sources of these flavanols .
6 YMCA HEALTHY LIVING MAGAZINE