prairie point

chocolate - health food?

This morning as is my usual Saturday morning custom I was listening to People's Pharmacy on my local NPR station. The topic was chocolate as a health food (unfortunately People's Pharmacy does not have on-line transcripts).

Dan actually wrote a little about this awhile back, focusing mainly on cocoa drinks. I was concerned then about the amount of fat in chocolate, but new research shows that the fat in cocoa butter may actually be good for you, like some fish fats and olive oil.

The flavonoids in chocolate are antioxidants. The darker the chocolate the better it is. And of course the less sugar also. Making cocoa from scratch is better than the instant, mainly because you can control the amount of sugar.

Even Dean Ornish was quoted on NPR as favoring chocolate snacks. The recommended dosage is about an ounce a day, taken between meals. And contrary to what your mother always told you it turns out that it is good to take a snack before meals - it ruins your appetite. If you're trying to loses weight, isn't that exactly what you want?

One cautionary note though: It does seem that some of the research on this was funded by the candymaker Mars.

I think I can see a new book in the making - the chocolate diet book. And the Times has already written about the appreciation of fine chocolates as the next gastronomic fad.

Posted by Bill Hopkins on December 6, 2003 08:29 AM