Gourmet

Archive for June, 2009

Eating chocolates is a grand heavenly experience, and this is why chocolate products in various forms and concoctions are present in the planet, across all cultures, continents and nations. Chocolates however are often associated with unhealthiness, as they consist of huge amounts of calories and can play a big factor in gaining weight. Recent studies show however that chocolates, especially black, can aid in healing different severe body complications, top among which are heart diseases. Moreover, the last couple of years saw the emergence of other beneficial uses of chocolates in the body, especially in the field of cosmetology. A numbers spas and skin centers across the United States introduced a healthy way to indulge in chocolates without having to let a morsel touch the taste buds, and that is to let them be absorbed by the body through the epidermis. Can Chocolate Make Your Skin Beautiful? Read below and find out.

The skin of the face is the most sensitive in the body, and the rich antioxidants found in chocolates make the food a very effective ingredient in various facial treatments. Today, many spa and wellness centers offer a wide array of facial procedures based on chocolates. These treatments basically shore up one great promise: to stop the early development of wrinkles in the face. Cocoa, the raw material from which chocolates are made, consists of properties that can hydrate the skin and enhance its texture. Cocoa is mixed with various skin enhancing ingredients and incorporated in different procedural agenda, like treatment to moisturize dry skin, lessen the oiliness of oily skin, kill the pimple-causing bacteria of pimply skin, and reduce fine lines in wrinkling skin, among many others. Getting regular chocolate-based facial procedures and practicing good hygiene can result to younger-looking, flawless, and glowing skin in less than a few months.

Aside from facial treatments, chocolate body wraps and massages are also becoming popular in wellness centers. These body wraps and massages basically aim to provide a holistic and indulgent spa experience–utilizing the smell, taste, texture, and color of chocolates to create a multi-sensory session that rejuvenates the skin, relaxes the tired muscles, uplifts the spirit, and creates a happy, warm, and peaceful feel. These body wraps and massages employ different chocolate scents and mixtures, many of them intertwined with other therapeutic ingredients like fruits, flowers, leaves, and vegetables, among many others. In chocolate body wraps, there is an emphasis to use the coating of cocoa to conduct skin exfoliation and send forth its anti-aging nutrients to the layers of the skin. In massages, there is a focus on combining music, chocolate scents, and chocolate cream and oil to bring both the mind and the body to the best state of relaxation.

There is more to chocolates than sweetness. Chocolates possess a number of substances that can provide aesthetic benefits, especially to the skin. Charged with antioxidants, they contribute in controlling the free radicals that destroy body cells during oxidation. By reducing the number of body cells being damaged, chocolates can definitely make the skin tight, blemish free, fair, and radiant.

If you love dark chocolate, then this is the best piece of news you’re going to hear for the next two or three years. Studies show that dark chocolate – but not milk or white chocolate – is very good for your health. This wonderful news was published in two prestigious science journals.

Dark chocolate is blood pressure-friendly
Dirk Taubert, PhD, MD, and colleague at the University of Cologne in Germany, has this to say about the health benefits of dark chocolate. “Dark chocolate lowers high blood pressure, but not white chocolate,” he says. The report appeared in The Journal of the American Medical Association, August 27 issue. Is this a license to drown in dark chocolate?

Here is the thing. Dark chocolate helps lower blood pressure, okay, but that doesn’t mean you should go out of your way to munch on dark chocolate every day.

For starters, it only helps control blood pressure if you’ve reached a certain age. It’s also only effective if you have mild high blood pressure, researchers say. In addition you’ll have to eat less of other things to balance the extra calories from the dark chocolate.

It’s a hassle, if you think about it, which you shouldn’t. The best way to take advantage of the health benefits of dark chocolate is to eat it only when you feel like it. The health benefit is just an added bonus. It’s not a ticket to cocoa gluttony.

We love antioxidants
Mauro Serafini, PhD, working for Italy’s National Institute of Food and Nutrition, says this about dark chocolate. “Dark chocolate is a potent antioxidant, but not milk chocolate or even dark chocolate eaten with milk,” he says. The report appeared in an issue of Nature in August 28.

Antioxidants are healthy body minerals. They eliminate free radicals responsible for heart diseases and several other ailments.

Mauro continues that milk interferes with the body’s absorption of antioxidants from the dark chocolate, negating any potential benefits that come with eating it. So say, “Dark chocolate please,” the next time you order at the chocolate counter. And don’t even think of taking it with milk. But even so, remember to indulge moderately.

Science as proof
Taubert signed up seven women and six men all aged between 55 and 64. All of them had mild high blood pressure. They were asked to eat a 100-gram chocolate bar everyday for two weeks. They did this. Some of the patients were given dark chocolate and the rest got white chocolate.

The patients who got dark chocolate showed a significant decrease in blood pressure–an average of two points for diastolic and five points for systolic blood pressure. Those who got white chocolate showed nothing.

In Italy, Serafini was busy assembling his own team. He signed up five man and seven women, all healthy, aged 25 to 35. Some of the patients, on different days, they ate about 100 grams of dark chocolate, some washed it down with milk, the rest ate 200 grams of milk chocolate.

Guess what? The first group had the most antioxidant content in their blood alter on. The milk chocolate eaters had the least.

What do you think? Care for a hot cup of dark chocolate all of a sudden?

A few years ago, a diet author named Sally Ann Voak came up with a book entitled “The Chocolate Diet”. Voak’s book promises that her diet program, if religiously followed, can shed excess pounds off the body in less than two weeks. The Chocolate Diet points out that people cannot really get rid of eating chocolates and other sweets, so instead of completely eliminating these foods from our diet, it is much better to focus on how to control, regulate, and schedule our intake of chocolates. The book warns that efforts to stop the intake of chocolates can just lead to severe chocolate addiction. When people restrict themselves from chocolates, the desire to much on them ironically increases, and once they submit to their temptation, they will tend to overeat, and throw the plan to reduce weight out the window.

Voak’s chocolate diet program clusters people into six groups, and these are the comfort eaters, the premenstrual cravers, the romantics, the secret bingers, the sugar addicts, and the weekend indulgers. The comfort eaters are people who indulge in chocolates when they are sad, tired, and down. The premenstrual cravers, taking it from the word itself, are women who eat chocolates during or before their menstrual period. The romantics are people who yearn for emotional, especially erotic, satisfaction and conveniently use chocolates as an alternative route to feel that satisfaction. Sugar addicts are people who have compulsive tendencies to eat huge amounts of chocolates everyday. Secret bingers are sugar addicts who indulge in chocolates in private places. Weekend indulgers are people who use parties, vacations, and celebrations as a justification to overeat chocolates.

The Chocolate Diet starts with complete elimination of chocolates for one week, and this is followed by a strict diet program designed with daily allowance of chocolates that ranges from 30 to 300 calories. The diet program basically recommends 4 meals everyday, which consists of a 250 calorie breakfast, two 300 calorie snacks, and a 400 calorie heavy meal. Foods that the Chocolate Diet recommends basically include low fat and low calorie vegetables. Aside from a detailed food program, the diet also designed different exercise routines for different types of chocolate addicts.

One of the criticisms on the chocolate diet however is the very little daily calorie allowances that it suggests to diet practitioners. Because the program is also devised with an exercise matrix, people certainly will experience hunger in conducting Voak’s diet plan.

The Chocolate Diet is one of the ways to alleviate the addiction of people towards eating chocolates. While this program tolerates chocolate intake everyday, such eating pleasure is offset by the very low calorie plan that it wants to implement, and the consequent hungry feeling that such plan entails. The Chocolate Diet admittedly can and does work for a lot of people, but this kind of program, gives a short term solution. People can lose weight through following the prescribed directions, but Chocolate Diet cannot stand as a good program to be adapted in people’s daily, long term lifestyle.

Dark Chocolate Dipped Rugelach

Valerie Confections’ 6 Piece Debut Collection