Chocolate: the Benefits. Really.
We write so often about stuff that’s bad for you, that it’s time we wrote about something that’s good for you, like chocolate. Research — real research by respected scientific organizations — has provided evidence that at least some of the fantasies of chocolate lovers – that they are really doing something positive for themselves as they consume the object of their affections – are true.
For lovers of dark chocolate there is the finding that eating dark chocolate is more appetite-satisfying than eating milk chocolate – and therefore could be seen as contributing to weight control. To arrive at this conclusion, the Faculty of Life Sciences at the University of Copenhagen enrolled a group of “healthy young men” to eat 100 grams (3.5 ounces) of chocolate after a 12-hour fast, on two separate occasions. On one, they ate dark chocolate; the other milk chocolate. Two and a half hours later, the subjects were treated to an all-you-can-eat pizza fest. In the session where the men ate dark chocolate, they ate 15 per cent less pizza than they did after consuming milk chocolate, and generally declared themselves to be feeling more sated than when they consumed milk chocolate first.
But even if you’re not concerned with your weight, chocolate turns out to have emotional benefits. The American Chemical Society’s Journal of Proteome Research published the results of a clinical trial that provided “strong evidence that the consumption of 40 grams (1.4) ounces) daily during a period of two weeks is sufficient to modify the metabolism of healthy human volunteers.” The volunteers were people who rated themselves as highly stressed, but showed significant reductions in the level of their stress hormones after the two weeks of chocolate eating.
There were similar findings for reductions in blood pressure and risk of stroke, but there’s a caveat: the findings are only good for dark chocolate, not for milk chocolate. It’s the amount of cacao in the chocolate that counts, meaning that a cup of hot chocolate doesn’t count for much in the way of health benefits. And most of the studies limited the subjects to some 30 grams (a little over an ounce) a day – not exactly a feast. On the other hand, one could conjecture that within reasonable limits, more might be better – and leave you happier, healthier and even, lighter.