You'd have to have been living under a rock for the past several years not to have heard all the hoopla about chocolate.
Yes it can lower blood pressure, yes it can decrease inflammation, yes it does make your blood less sticky which in turn can diminish the likelihood of having a heart attack, yes it tastes amazing, and yes it does make your behind bigger if you eat too much of it.
Just because there are some health benefits associated with eating chocolate, doesn't mean you can eat a huge honking milk chocolate bar for lunch and call it a good nutrition day.
No, no, no, no, no. Remember if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Here's the problem. Not all chocolate is created equal. When you read about the health benefits of chocolate, they're talking about dark chocolate, not milk chocolate.
And to make matters even more confusing, not all of the dark chocolate is created equally.
The big deal about chocolate is the flavanol content found in the cocoa bean. Flavanols are natural compounds with antioxidant properties and these aren't restricted to decadent dark bittersweet chocolate. We find them in red wine, purple grape juice, green tea, apples with the peel on, kidney beans and cinnamon. Aside from the chocolate and the red wine none of the others will get you lucky on Valentine's Day. So, for the best payoff, skip the beans and the cinnamon and go with the chocolate.
The more a cocoa bean is processed the less of these potent flavanols are present. One company in the US has a patented process that maximizes the retention of these naturally occurring flavanols. It's good old Mars Inc. They make M&M's - but it's the dark not the milk chocolate version that you want and the best news is that the dark chocolate M&M's are available in Canada. They also make Dove Bars, my personal favourite, which as of this year are available in Canada. Pick some up at Shopper's Drug Mart, Zellers, or Metro grocery stores.
If trucking down to the States for Dove Bars isn't in your game plan, what's a person to do?
Check out dark chocolate that has at least 60% to 70% cocoa listed on the front of the package. It's better than nothing and several companies that have products in Canada are now displaying their cocoa content so we chocoholics in the know can get our fix and health benefits all in one easy morsel.
Ghirardelli even has bittersweet chocolate chips that have 60% cocoa available at, for some weird reason, Shopper's Drug Mart.
Hershey's makes mini chocolate bars sold in bags that are also in the 60% cocoa category and so does the chocolate of my childhood good old Canadian owned Purdy's with a 70% cocoa content that rocks.
Don't fool yourself that highly processed sweet milk chocolate with all the cookies, caramel, coconut and other confections are good for you or your waist line. You're living in a dream world.
All chocolate has calories whether it's milk or dark, and size matters, so the bottom line when it comes to eating chocolate really is going to be your big or little behind.
Go ahead, have a little dark chocolate everyday if you can afford those extra calories, but remember if you do, don't devour, savour. That serving of great chocolate, which is only one ounce, is worth at least a couple of minutes melting in your mouth.
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