Chocolate

The Health Benefits of Dark Chocolate by Kathryn Steed

Come to the Dark Side. It's healthier! Don't be fooled into thinking that all chocolate is bad for you. Numerous studies have shown that dark chocolate has many health benefits, especially for your heart.

Eating a small bar of dark chocolate everyday can help keep your heart and cardiovascular system running healthy. Studies have shown that other health benefits of dark chocolate include lower blood pressure and lower cholesterol.

Dark chocolate isn't only good for your heart. It stimulates production of endorphins which makes you feel better. It contains the anti-depressant serotonin and theobromine and caffeine, which are stimulants.

But that doesn't mean that you should eat loads of dark chocolate daily. Eating half a bar every day is more than enough to get the benefits. Just remember that you may have to cut back from other foods because chocolate is still a high-calorie food. Balance your calories appropriately.

Chocolate has a lot of fat, but some of the fats in dark chocolate won't impact your cholesterol. These include oleic acid, a healthy monounsaturated fat that is also found in olive oil, stearic acid, a saturated fat which doesn't affect cholesterol. But watch out for palmitic acid, a saturated fat that raises cholesterol and heart disease risk.

Quick Fact: How Chocolate Is Made Unlike many crops, the pods of the delicate cacao tree must be picked by hand, making the process of creating chocolate a laborious affair. The pods are opened one by one, and the pulp-covered seeds extracted. To reduce bitterness, cacao seeds are fermented for several days (like wine grapes), and then dried. At this point, farmers sell sacks of cacao seeds to corporate buyers, where industrial machines take over. On the factory floor, large machines roast the seeds to release the taste and aroma. The roasted seeds are cracked open to reach the nib or heart, which is then ground into chocolate liquor (not liqueur). This thick liquid, made of cocoa butter and cocoa solids, is manipulated to create the different kinds of chocolate