A Chocolate A Day . . .

 
Since it's almost Friday I wanted to write today about something more fun in the healthy food world . . . CHOCOLATE! Who doesn't love chocolate? I mean, I'm a girl, so it's kind of in my DNA, but seriously, who doesn't just love chocolate? I tend to crave chocolate on bad days or when I'm moody and I spent my whole life trying to fight that craving until one day I came to a beautiful realization: chocolate can actually be good for you. Let me say it again so you can be sure I didn't type it incorrectly: Chocolate can actually be good for you!

Yes, I know you're thinking I'm crazy, but before you decide to stop reading my blog and never return because the crazy lady thinks chocolate is good for you, let me explain:

Let me start off by saying that I said chocolate can be good for you. It really can, that is if you eat the right kind. When I was in high school I absolutely detested dark chocolate. Under no circumstances would I ever have eaten the stuff. This also could have been because I had overloaded my body with sugar from milk chocolate and white chocolate candy bars. The bitterness of dark chocolate just didn't compare to the uber sweetness of regular chocolate.  I vowed to never ever eat dark chocolate, and I kept my word until about six months ago.

I was being an early morning bum watching the Today Show on NBC. They had a health expert on, as they often do, who was talking about ways to make a healthier lunch. I was checking my e-mail when  I heard this lady say that having a bit of chocolate everyday can actually be good for your heart. Thinking that I must have misheard her, I quickly rewound, and much to my surprise heard her say the same thing. The problem was that it had to be dark chocolate. Bleh! The expert said that as long as it was dark chocolate with a 60% or higher cacao content, one to two ounces of chocolate per day could actually benefit you.

I decided to look into this further and found it to be quite true. Kris and I decided to buy individually wrapped ounces of dark chocolate just to try it out. At first, I wasn't crazy about it, but I was crazy, however, about the idea of being able to eat chocolate daily without feeling guilty about it. Eventually, I got used to it, and had an ounce of dark chocolate at the end of lunch every day to finish off my meal. Then, one day, we were out of dark chocolate so I got into the pantry to find the milk chocolate baking morsels we had and grabbed a small handful out. I only had a couple of chips before I had to spit them out. The chocolate tasted synthetic and had a weird texture. It was then that I realized, the darker the chocolate, the more "real" the chocolate was.

The food industry has put us on a sensory overload when it comes to taste. They use synthetic, chemical flavoring as well as ridiculous amounts of sugar to make food taste more intense so your taste buds will like it more. Unfortunately, this same phenomena is what often gets us addicted to food in the first place. Because of this, often natural foods, even sweet ones do not taste as good to us as they should. Our taste buds have become "desensitized" in a way.

Needless to say, since the milk chocolate incident I have become a lover of dark chocolate and am so glad that we decided to try it.

Okay, so maybe you're still not believing me about the whole chocolate being good thing. Here's the part where I will actually explain why: Dark chocolate, when eaten every day can decrease your risk for cardiovascular disease by 75%!!!! That's crazy! The reason for this is the flavonoids in cocoa. Chocolate really comes from these little cocoa beans that though bitter, have terrific flavor and many health benefits. The flavonoids found in chocolate are called flavanols and they prevent fatlike substances from clogging arteries in your bloodstream (Johnny Bowden author of The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth). With a reduced risk in your blood clotting you can help your body prevent heart attacks and strokes. They can also lower your blood pressure.

Cocoa beans are also high in anti-oxidants which can help you from getting sick and help prevent you from getting a wide variety of other diseases. In 1998 the British Medical Journal reported that dark chocolate consumption is linked to longer life. The proof is in the pudding, er, chocolate that is, you should probably stay away from chocolate pudding though . . .

Dark chocolate does have fat in it though so if you're going to eat it, you should substitute it for other kinds of fats and sugars you are currently eating. It will be better for you any way. You must also be able to limit yourself to just 1-2 ounces of chocolate per day (this is roughly about two squares on a candy bar).

To sum up, I want to give you some guidelines when it comes to eating dark chocolate:

• High cacao content (60% or higher)
• Organic is always better, but not required
• Low sugar content
• Low sodium
• Low saturated fat
• If the ingredients include milk fat, make sure that they also include cocoa butter (cocoa butter is fairly expensive and so most companies will try to cut corners by using the cheaper, and worse for you, milk fats).
• Limit yourself to 1-2 ounces per day 

Kris and I are currently eating Ghirardelli's Premium Baking Chips Bittersweet Dark Chocolate-60% cacao. We have tried several different brands and this is the one we like the best. We have found that usually it's cheaper to buy the baking chips instead of individually wrapped chocolate. We make sure to limit ourselves by separating the chocolate into ounces and putting it into little, individual Ziploc snack bags.

Please let me know if you have any questions about dark chocolate and this post. I hope you get to enjoy, as I have, your daily allowance of that all-too-delicious (and good for you) dark chocolate!