Chocolates Health Benefits Make it Easy to Indulge!
By Colleen Maguire
Until a few years ago, coffee was said to be bad for health. It has now been proven that a cup of coffee a day goes a long way! The same can be said of chocolate. Chocolate was once lauded as a get-fat scheme, with chocoholics trying their hardest to quit their chocolate addiction!
With research, these traditional beliefs of chocolate being harmful to the health have become obsolete. In fact, chocolate is now regarded as a heaven-sent gift to preserve good health! So don’t be too surprised if you’re given a compulsory order to eat some chocolate some day soon!
There is an Indian tribe called Kuna living in the Panama Islands that has one thing to say for itself: Good Health. These people of the Kuna tribe take up to five glasses of chocolate every day. And guess what? They have no history of high blood pressure, lung cancer, or heart diseases. So what does this tell us about chocolate?
Experts have mentioned that the good qualities of chocolate depend on the percentage of cocoa content in it. Basically, the darker, the better!
The benefits of chocolate are vast, and some were actually discovered more than two thousand years ago. The first to discover the fact that chocolate is a healthy substance was Montezuma, the Emperor of the ancient Aztec civilization. Montezuma reputedly drank chocolate fifty times a day, to “build up resistance and fight fatigue”.
One advantage of cocoa-rich chocolate is the presence of polyphenols. Dark chocolate is known to be full of polyphenols, such as flavonoids and tannins, which are basically chemical compounds that provide good health benefits to the body.
Chocolate contains flavonoids which are purported to be the main ingredients in keeping us healthy. Unfortunately, as the cocoa beans are roasted and processed into eating chocolate, some of the flavonoids are lost. This is why having chocolate with a richer cocoa content is more beneficial. Flavonoids have been shown to reduce the probability of getting lung cancer, heart disease, type II diabetes, as well as prostate cancer.
One of the major flavonoids found in dark chocolate is epicatechin, which is used in widening and relaxing of blood vessels. While theobromine helps, epitachin is the main reason as to why people who eat dark chocolate daily rarely suffer from high blood pressure. Some tests done on two groups of people suffering from hypertension have proved that dark chocolate really does reduce blood pressure by widening arteries and other blood vessels.
Another benefit of chocolate lies in the theobromine it contains. Generally, dark chocolate with a higher percentage of cocoa contains more theobromine, which actively lowers blood pressure by dilating blood vessels. Since theobromine can also relax your bronchial muscles, eating chocolate containing it really helps when you’ve got a cough.
Dark chocolate also prevents aging effects. Yes, you read that right! In today’s world, many people (especially women) try to look younger with cosmetic surgery, plenty of exercise, Botox injections and the like. When one square of chocolate a day helps you keep those wrinkles off your face, why go for such excessive measures?
Another benefit of chocolate is that it is a natural antidepressant. Have you ever wondered as to why most of us use chocolate to cheer us up? There, you’ve figured it out! Chocolate contains tryptophan, and tryptophan induces the production of serotonin in your body, which is a hormone that is your body’s own natural antidepressant.
Magnesium and Iron are two major compounds found in adequate supply in one bar of chocolate. Having a chocolate bar over a week supplements the magnesium and iron levels in your body. Also, chocolate can be extremely healthy if you like the pecan and almond types, which provide your body with additional nutrients.
As healthy as chocolate is for you, it still isn’t something that you should overindulge. A little goes a long way - If you have a serving of high quality, rich, creamy delicious chocolate you can get both the health benefits and the delicious taste sensations without any worries of weight gain. So the next time that niggling craving for chocolate rises, just say that you are having some for your health and enjoy each bite!
Colleen Maguire -
Writer, Traveler and Chocolate Lover
For More Delicious Chocolate Ideas and Tastes:
http://www.UltimateChocolateShoppe.com
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