subject: Chocolate Is Not Necessarily Bad For You [print this page] What is it about chocolate that make it so irresistible? We eat for any reason; as a treat to reward ourselves, to lift us when we are down or in our favourite desserts. It ticks al the boxes, but we also know that we shouldn't eat the amount that we do, unless it was healthy chocolate of course.
Well guess what? There is one. Although we know that chocolate has benefits such as Antioxidants and vitamins, there is stuff in there that isn't so good for us.
It's all the stuff that we put into chocolate that makes it fattening and unhealthy. These are things such as milk solids, sugar and cocoa butter. These help to make milk chocolate taste so good, but are really bad for us. A dark chocolate and especially a low sugar bitter variety doesn't have all these additives.
Chocolate isn't actually food as far as our bodies are concerned, they will merely store away all the bad stuff and ignore the good bits. This makes our guilty treat even worse for us than we thought!
So for your body to properly absorb the healthier properties you have to eat with something else. This is where dark chocolate with fruit and nuts added is so good. You get the minerals, vitamins and antioxidants as well as the goodness from the fruit and the nuts.
But if you take in other stuff such as fruit or nuts at the same time it will then treat the chocolate as food and you will then get the benefits.
When I worked as a chocolatier I regularly consumed dark chocolate with all manner of fruits; in particular berries and nuts. A blood test showed that my levels of vitamins and minerals were perfect and I didn't gain any weight.
There is now no excuse for filling up on cheap and nasty milk chocolate which will just add pounds. A healthier bar of dark chocolate which has fruit and nuts in it will do the same job but without any weight gain.
Like everything else, if you eat too much chocolate it becomes unhealthy, so watch your consumption.
