My fellow chocolate enthusiasts! Like me, your love for eating chocolate might only be rivaled by the occasional guilt of indulging. Ever found yourself promising ‘just one more piece,’ only to realize the box is suddenly empty and leaving you stressed out?
What if understanding the secrets within each chocolate bite could dissolve that guilt, guiding us to relish this beloved treat as part of a healthy lifestyle? Call it insane? By mastering moderation and making informed choices, let’s transform our relationship with chocolate from a guilty pleasure to a healthful delight.
Unwrapping the Chocolate Process
Lets quickly start at the very beginning of the chocolate journey; a cacao tree, whose pods contain seeds that kickstart the creation of chocolate. Here’s the process:
1. Harvesting Cacao Pods: Harvesting the pods by hand, which protects the trees and ensures only ripe pods are collected.
2. Fermenting the Seeds: Cacao pods are then opened to remove the seeds, which are surrounded by a pulpy substance. The seeds are then fermented for about 5-7 days under banana leaves.
3. Drying and Roasting: The seeds are dried, reducing moisture and further enhancing flavor. The dried seeds, now called cacao beans, are roasted at various temperatures to develop a richer taste and aroma.
4. Crushing and Conching: The roasted beans are crushed to produce what we call cacao nibs, then ground into a thick paste known as chocolate liquor. During conching, the liquor is continuously mixed with ingredients like sugar, milk, and cocoa butter. The duration of conching affects the smoothness and quality of the final chocolate.
In short, the process turns bitter cacao beans into the rich, aromatic cocoa that forms the basis of all chocolate products.
Savoring the Health Benefits and Advantages of Chocolate
Now for the sweet spot! Chocolate is not just delicious; it’s also packed with compounds that can benefit health. Heard of flavanols? These powerful antioxidants can get quite abundant in chocolate, particularly the darker the chocolate is. It’s because they originate from cacao beans, and commonly found in tea, red wine, apples, and berries – so big thumbs up for you if you enjoy those too.
With the following health benefits of chocolate on your side, especially dark chocolates, you might find even more reasons to indulge in this sweet treat responsibly:
Antioxidant Activity
With cacao being rich in flavonoids and polyphenols, these compounds fight oxidative stress and reduce inflammation, which are linked to various chronic diseases. Dark chocolate generously endows you with these rewards thanks to its higher cocoa content.
The link between cocoa and antioxidant properties have been recognized for years, with one such findings in 2011, highlighting the effectiveness of cocoa in countering inflammatory processes.
Heart Health
Numerous studies have highlighted dark chocolate’s cardiovascular benefits, including lowering blood pressure and improving blood flow. This can reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke.
Most promising was a 2022 long running trial – the COcoa Supplement and Multivitamin Outcomes Study (COSMOS), where daily cocoa extract supplementation suggested a 15% reduction in cardiovascular events and 27% decrease in deaths by cardiovascular disease.
Cholesterol
The same flavanols that enhance blood flow may also pitch in with managing total cholesterol. Through more research, it turns out drinking cocoa powder was observed to reduce levels of LDL (bad) cholesterol and increase HDL (good) cholesterol. These nifty effects are largely thanks to cocoa flavanols working their magic on fat metabolism, essentially giving your lipid profile (blood fat levels) a healthy makeover.
Mood Enhancer
Think of all the times you ate chocolate and then felt your spirits lifted. This isn’t just about the joy of tasting something delicious; there’s actual science behind why you feel better.
The cocoa flavanols can improve mood by influencing brain activity and neurotransmitter levels. That’s why chocolate could alleviate negative emotions, likely because it plays a cheeky role in tickling the brain areas that light up for reward and pleasure.
Cognitive Function
Flavanols can also enhance brain function by improving blood flow to the brain. Studies have shown that young adults who consume flavanol-rich chocolate experience improved cognitive performance, memory and reaction times, truly making it a smart snack.
Additionally, regular intake can help calm the nerves and maintain mental sharpness. For older adults, these benefits extend even further, helping to prevent cognitive decline.
Athletic Performance
To all of you who enjoy some good running or cycling, you’re in luck. Dark chocolate is packed with nitrates that help your body create more nitric oxide. Think of nitric oxide as a fitness coach for your blood vessels, encouraging them to widen up, allowing a smoother, faster flow of blood. This means more oxygen can zoom through your body to your muscles, so it’s more readily available when you really need to push the limits during a workout.
This was put to the test in 2015, where 9 cyclists ate dark chocolate daily for 14 days straight. The results? They hit higher levels of energy and crushed their total time goals. Plus, trends indicated lower oxygen costs during moderate-intensity cycling after dark chocolate treats.
While ongoing research continues to solidify all these compelling points, I’d say there’s enough support that chocolate, when chosen wisely and enjoyed in moderate amounts, can be a delightful addition to a health-conscious lifestyle.
Choosing the Right Chocolate for a Healthy Plan
Hope you’re not too excited just yet, I think it wise that I emphasize again – chocolate must be chosen wisely. As you’ve probably figured by now, the amount of cocoa solids is key to determining how suitable each of the following chocolates are in a healthy plan:
- Milk Chocolate: Contains about 10-50% cocoa solids while including milk powders or condensed milk, making it creamier and sweeter but lower in beneficial compounds. With extra care, you could enjoy it in moderation – consider it a treat for special occasions rather than a staple in your daily diet.
- White Chocolate: You could argue tirelessly on whether white chocolate is even chocolate, as it contains no cacao solids; just cocoa butter mixed with sugar and milk. With lack of antioxidants, I would rather steer clear from it for a health-focused diet.
- Dark Chocolate: Usually containing 50-90% cocoa solids, it is without doubt the best of the 3 when it comes to offering the highest concentration of nutrients & antioxidants, the least sugar, and no milk.
As I’ve now made abundantly clear of the power in eating dark chocolate, let’s explore how to maximize its role as a top health choice, and circle back to another healthy superstar that might not have caught your attention earlier.
My Top Chocolate Food Choices and Recommendations
1. Cacao Nibs and Cacao Powder
The ultimate superfoods; they often beat even dark chocolate in health benefits, thanks to their minimal processing which preserves more antioxidants and flavanols of the raw cacao beans. Cacao nibs are the crushed, unprocessed bits of cacao beans, appearing as small nutty bites with a crunchy texture and no added sugar. Cacao powder is when you grind cacao beans further while removing the fat.
You can find these superfoods at health food stores, large supermarkets or online. As they do have far less sugar than any other chocolate bar, they will taste notably strong and bitter. It may take time for you to adjust to this so try sprinkling cacao nibs over your breakfast bowl, cookies, granola, or blending powder into your coffee or post-workout smoothie.
If you’re after quality, Cacao Bliss sources the best raw cacao to produce a healthy chocolate superfood blend perfect for everyday fitness and well-being. Ideal in coffee and smoothies, and tastes absolutely heavenly if you mix with coconut/almond milk for a healthy hot chocolate drink. With the bonus of a free Cacao Lover’s Cookbook, consider this a guilt-free treat.
2. Dark Chocolate
A bold answer to ‘why is chocolate healthy’. Dark chocolate contains at least 50% cocoa content, making it a potent source of all benefits that we discussed above. Get the most out of it by aiming for at least 70% but if you truly dare, you can even find dark chocolate bars with 100% cocoa content (meaning no sugar). Just be prepared for the extra bitter flavor that comes with such purity.
For those new to dark chocolate, starting with a lower percentage of cocoa and gradually increasing it can ease the transition. Incorporating dark chocolate into recipes can also manage its bitterness, whether you’re melting it into a warm beverage or baking it into treats.
Consuming dark chocolate regularly does indeed come with many health benefits so you’ll never have to struggle to force this out of your food plan again. Although, like everything else, don’t overdo it as the build-up of calories, sugar and caffeine can cause setbacks in your balanced diet. Keep an eye on the product label when shopping.