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Eat More Chocolate Flavanols
If you love chocolate there is good news, it is good for you!
Chocolate is high in flavanols that have potent antioxidant potential and
have been shown to reduce the risk of many diseases.
The quality of the chocolate you eat is important and
the darker the chocolate, the more chocolate flavanols it has.
The darker, high quality chocolates use
cocoa butter and cocoa solids as their main ingredients.
Chocolates contain some saturated fats, but some saturated fat in your diet is good for you.
Cocoa butter is a fat derived from cocoa plants (Theobroma cacao).
Cocoa butter is expensive, the cheaper brands replace the cocoa butter with milk fats and hydrogenated oils.
Fat is essential for the body, just make sure it is a good fat and not too much.
Milk chocolate is diluted with milk and bleached white sugar,
this is not good.
A cacao tree with fruit pods.
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The best for you is unsweetened cocoa, it is one of the purest forms of chocolate.
It makes a great hot chocolate with a spoon of honey.
Unsweetened cocoa powder is lower in fat and calories and it has
more of the dark chocolate flavanols.
This is a way to experience the characteristic properties of the cocoa bean,
another way is to relish a bar that is 99% cocoa.
A 99% or 85% cocoa content does not always mean there is going to be the great flavor you want.
The quality of the beans and the way they are processed have the biggest part in determining the quality of the taste.
Flavanols are a group of phytonutrients within the flavonoid family.
Flavonoids are a diverse class of phytonutrients found in a assortment of foods.
Flavanols are the predominant flavonoids in tea, red wine and dark chocolates.
Cacao seed in the fruit.
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The workings behind flavanols and how they function in the body are becoming much better understood. Research provides evidence that flavanols may be responsible for preventing blood platelets from aggregating, improving blood flow and vessel function and may help prevent certain cancers.
The cocoa flavanol responsible for a reduction in platelet aggregation has been found and can be synthesized.
This means cocoa flavanols can be made by drug companies into
a major new class of drugs, based on flavanols,
to treat vascular complications associated with diabetes, strokes, cardiovascular disease and a range of other impairments.
Cocoa butter has long been used
to add flavor, scent, and smoothness to skin creams, lotions, cosmetics, tanning oils and soaps.
There is evidence that eating cocoa flavanols
may increase hydration, improve skin smoothness, and help the skin defend
it's self against sun damage.
This is great news for all chocolate eaters. Just don’t forget that a little dark chocolate is good, too much is not better, chocolate is loaded with calories.
Over consumption of caffeine should not be a problem, chocolate has very little caffeine.
A small serving only contains about as much caffeine as a cup of decaffeinated coffee.
That is why I eat the chocolate covered espresso beans.
Gunpowder Green Tea
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The chocolate you eat should contain at least 70% cocoa and should be dark or bittersweet.
I eat nothing less than 85% cocoa. 85% cocoa is not for everybody, it is not sweet
and may be a bit bitter for some people. My advice is to
eat a small amount every day with your morning tea.
It goes great with irish breakfast tea, but if you want to get a
real dose of morning flavonoids try 85% cocoa with
gunpowder green tea.
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That is a great way to start the morning.
Make sure you enjoy it, when you enjoy your flavonoids they are even better for you. Let each bite melt in your mouth and think about how good it is for you. Make it your morning meditation.
Take a bite and think about how good things are going to happen today, how much you are going to get done and how easy things are going to go. Your day is going to go just like the
chocolate melting in your mouth. Now, wash it down with gunpowder green tea and get to work.
By Harvey Robinson
Webmaster of
Years to Your Health
Further Research
This is the stuff. Unsweetened Cocoa offers the true essence of the roasted cocoa bean—dark and soul-stirring
http://www.ghirardelli.com/products/cocoa_unsweetened.aspx
NOKA Chocolatier, Katrina Merrem, has as her
life-passion, the goal of returning chocolate to its
pure, luxurious state by crafting the finest
dark chocolate truffles and
chocolates.
http://www.nokachocolate.com/philosophy.html
Lindt makes a bar that is 99% Cocoa. Here is information in tasting chocolate,
this is an important thing to know, just make sure you start with the right
chocolate.
http://www.lindtusa.com/chocomania_tasting.cfm
The IOCCC (International Office of Cocoa, Chocolate and Sugar Confectionery Industries) has published Fact Sheets on a chocolate and health:
http://www.lindtusa.com/chocomania_health.cfm
Bluebonnet Supplements
at
Years to Your Health
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