Gourmet

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?