If someone asks me “How does life taste?” I would certainly answer ‘Dark Chocolate’! Cause it’s a perfect blend of sweetness and bitterness, but I love it anyway
Tanvi Purohit
I was thinking about chocolate. I don’t know why, but I was thinking about it. Not a I-want-it- eat-it-all sort of craving, but more in a how-does-it-help-us sort of way. We hear all sort of contradicting messages regarding chocolate: some say it’s good for you, some say you need to stay away from it. Chocolate is one of the biggest markets, always growing, always inflating. And it has been since it’s discovery.
The fascination for chocolate goes way back. The Aztecs were the first ones to use cacao seeds and they were convinced they were a gift from the god of wisdom, Quetzalcoatl. They crushed the seed to prepare a dark bitter drink to which they attributed various benefits, such as aphrodisiac and energetic properties. That was around 450 BC. The rest of the world had to wait the 16th century to discover the taste and properties of cacao seeds, when Christopher Columbus brought them back from Mesoamerica to Europe. It became the subject of a monopoly by the Spanish empire until the Dutch got control of it and open it up to the rest of Europe. If it was first used as a medicine, it was quickly turned into a society drink by adding sugar to the original bitter mixture.
Nowadays, about two-third of the world’s cocoa is produced in Western Africa, the remained plantations being in Mesoamerica (its natal land) and South Asia. The word has it that chocolate comes from a plant and is basically a vegetable; if that means chocolate is potentially very healthy for us, it is also subject to climate change… what will happen to us when we won’t be able to grow cacao trees (also known as the Theobroma cacao plant)?!
Enough gloominess, it’s a post about chocolate after all! What is the truth about the benefits of eating chocolate? Bottom line is: the darker the chocolate, the better it is for you.
First, chocolate is a derivate of coffee! And as mentioned previously (see Coffee, oh my coffee), coffee wishes you well. Dark chocolate is made of theobromine, a molecular substance that comes from the decomposition of caffeine (i.e., a metabolite), and theobromine will give you a caffeine kick. A nice gentle one, the kind you barely notice but still gives you a little bit of energy. Chocolate contains 5 times less caffeine than coffee and 3 times less than black tea, but it contains enough to stimulate your body and boost your mind gently.
Secondly, chocolate is full of anti-inflammatory and antioxidant compounds, called flavanols, like the ones found in green tea or red wine. Great… and what are they?
When we get hurt, we cut ourselves, or a pathogen invades our body, inflammatory responses are triggered to help us fight whatever is attacking us, releasing anti-inflammatory agents. Inflammatory responses are vital to contain an infection or prevent pathogen to spread throughout our body. They are characterised by 4 signs: redness, swelling, pain, and heat. It’s quite easy to spot when the wound is “superficial”. On the other hand, antioxidants help protecting the cells from damage caused by specific unstable molecules. Those molecules are formed when an inflammation occurs within the body. Antioxidants thus contribute to limit the effect of an inflammation and protect the cells surrounding the inflamed areas.
Both anti-inflammatory and antioxidant compounds play a role in protecting our body from threats: they are soldiers devoted to our well-being and the good functioning of every organ. As such, the cocoa flavanols have been shown to help all sort of body systems, from reducing blood pressure to increasing blood flow to the brain. Flavanols is also a key factor in helping reducing memory loss in elder people. Those compounds are also the reason why chocolate was thought to be an aphrodisiac in the first place: the antioxidants will trigger the wall of the blood vessel to relax, dilating the blood vessels, hence lower blood pressure and improved blood circulation… well, everywhere in the body.
Third, chocolate reduces the level of cortisol, the stress hormone that can take the wheel every now and then and drive us crazy. It seems then that chocolate stress-eaters are onto something: they are craving the one thing that can help them reduce their level of stress! Careful though, it’s true for dark chocolate alone. Don’t go around shoving milk chocolate down your throat, you’ll end up feeling worse than before: full of sugar, feeling guilty for all the calories ingested, and still stressed out. Dark chocolate can’t help you lose weight, but its action on cortisol can prevent putting on belly fat! True fact: stress hormones are linked to forming belly fat (a bit like beer it would seem). AND dark chocolate contains 15% less calories than milk chocolate. Put that Mars bar down and go grab some 70% + chocolate, your body and your mind will thank you later.
Last but not least, chocolate stimulate mitochondrial activity which deals with using oxygen to produce energy. Chocolate boosts the production of energy! On top of that, dark chocolate is rich in magnesium, a mineral that helps reducing cramps, prevents water retention, reduces fatigue… and help fight depression and irritability. Finally, as Willy Wonka said, dark chocolate contains molecules that create a sense of euphoria, similar to the feeling of being in love.
To sum up, eating dark chocolate is good for your memory, blood pressure, and your mood. Its antioxidant function is good for your brain, it temporarily reduces stress and gives you a soft energy kick. So what are you waiting for? A piece of chocolate a day… keeps the doctor away!
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