Chocoholics rejoice

Perceptions change with time. Chocolate is a classic instance to this. Rewind the time machine a couple of years; and the melt in mouth chocolate with its seductive aroma was a confection that came across as a guilty sin. Not any more, going by the latest researches, if you nibble on delicious dark chocolates.

Choco Delight

What metamorphosed chocolates from a guilty sin to a superfood? The answer lies in cocoa, a potent antioxidant. Antioxidants in foods are rated by their ORAC, or “oxygen radical absorbance capacity,” which is a food’s ability to calm free radicals. Dark chocolate, per 100 grams, has twice the ORAC of milk chocolate, four times the ORAC of raisins and about ten times the ORAC of raspberries, according to data from the USDA and the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Chang Lee the chariman of the Department of Food Science and Technology at Cornell University in the US has been studying the healthy properties of cocoa for years. Cocoa is enriched with polyphenols, the best performers but the least researched antioxidants. Lee and his team found that cocoa has nearly twice as many antioxidants as red wine, and up to three times as many as green tea.

Have chocolates for healthy heart

When it comes to expressing love, chocolates are just perfect. Besides gifting it to your sweetheart nibble them together for healthy hearts.

The latest research study by researchers at Yale Prevention Research Centre at Connecticut says that a meager snack of dark chocolate once a day is good for your heart, as it boosts the function of vital endothelial cells that line the inside of blood vessels. Improved blood function, in turn, mitigates the risk of cardiovascular disease, says researcher Valentine Yanchou Njike, MD, of the Yale Prevention Research Center.
Njike credits this to flavonoids, a group of antioxidant compounds also found in fruits and vegetables. The more flavonoid-rich foods you eat, the lower your risk of heart disease is, he says.

Studies have shown flavonoids appear to benefit blood vessel function by influencing the body’s production of nitric oxide, which helps regulate blood vessel tone.

Studies are showing that antioxidants in chocolate — dark chocolate and cocoa powder — may increase “good” (HDL) cholesterol levels by as much as 10 percent.

Other than antioxidants, fats found in chocolate, like stearic acid can boost HDL levels too, says the previous research by Kris-Etherton published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 1997.

Choco delight

You may find this difficult to believe, but it is true! Chocolates may also help lower blood pressure by an average of 10 percent while improving the body’s sensitivity to insulin, researchers report. Not all chocolates, only the dark ones, for they are rich in flavonoids–the same antioxidant compounds, according to the report in the July 18, 2005 online edition of Hypertension.

Chocolate is a good source of iron, magnesium and phospohorus. Dark chocolate has more iron than the white one.

The colour discrimination

If you have nibbled pure dark chocolate, chances are you might not want to make a habit of it. Whereas a bar of dark chocolate has cocoa in higher concentration, milk chocolates have lower amounts of the same. In the year 2003 researchers at the University of Glasgow and Italy’s National Institute for Food and Nutrition Research carried out tests using both varieties of chocolate—milk and dark. They found that volunteers had to consume twice as much milk chocolate as dark chocolate to obtain the same amount of antioxidants.

The bottomline

Still, chocolates are a high calorie food. The lower the cocoa content of a bar, higher it will be on calories and saturated fats. May be a small bar of dark chocolate a day is fine, as a supplement to a balanced diet but not as a substitute to five servings of fruits and veggies.Combining chocolates—milk or dark with dairy may rule out health benefits, says research.

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