Chocolate, pleasure for our health
Chocolate is one of the pleasures of the life, at least for me and not only it is very delicious but also, it is a good food for our health because it protects us against chronic diseases. The fact is that chocolate has a high content of polyphenol which has antioxidant characteristics with potential health benefits. According to Sylvie Charton, Human Health and Nutrition European Manager of MARS Europe, eating chocolate in a prolonged condition reduces the risk to suffer chronic diseases like the cancer or cardiovascular disease. Amongst the principal benefits of the chocolate are:
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- sensory pleasure
- benefits for the health
In addition, there are a series of essential nutrients for the diet as proteins, carbohydrates and fats and a wide variety of active components as flavanols, methylxanthines: and for its high percentage in esteriatic and oleic acid.
Due to its high contents in fat, the chocolate is considered to be an exceptional source of energy and a super mineralized product in magnesium, copper, iron and potassium.
The other positive aspect, also very important, is more linked to our mind state because it contributes to the emotional well-being which improves the humor and reduces the tension.
Sylvie said that we have to discard some false rumors for example that it is the main cause of obesity since this one is due to other factors as the diet, the genetics, the levels of activity and the behavior. She affirmed that there are studies that demonstrate that obese persons do not feel the need to eat chocolate.
Moreover, she clarified that the chocolate doesn’t provokes caries, neither migraines, nor acne and that the butter of cocoa doesn’t increase the levels of cholesterol in blood.
In another hand, another study from the research german team of Brian Buijsse and Heiner Boeing demonstrated that the daily consumption of 6 grams of black chocolate would reduce 40% the cardiovascular risks as myocardial infarction and intellectual vascular accident.
The 6 grams correspond more or less at a little square piece of chocolate. To get this conclusion, they have tested and followed during 8 years 20.000 volunteers between 35 and 65 years old. The ones, who ate on average 7.5 grams a day, have their blood pressure less high than the ones who ate 1.7 grams on average a day.
This result means that cocoa eaters decreased about 27% of risk of infarct and 48% of intellectual vascular accident. The study has been published by the European Heart Journal in which Brian said that this is because of the flavonoids in the cocoa.
To resume and in simple words, it is good for us, something that I knew the first time I ate it and my mom was so mad because hands and face full of chocolate with a big smile :-)