Chocolate

Happy Valentine's Day! Let's celebrate chocolate.

It may be full of calories and sugar, make you gain weight or get pimples, but wait a minute. There are some good to go along with the bad.

Benefits of chocolate:

• may help your heart stay healthy

• full of antioxidants

• may help improve memory

• improves mood

• improves mental focus

• may lower risk for Alzheimer's Disease

• may facilitate endorphin production

• may help lower blood pressure

• may help with diabetes

• may reduce food cravings

• may help reduce complications with pregnancy

• assists circulation

• may help calm a cough

• cocoa contains vital nutrients

• may help you see better

• may help reduce fatigue

• may help lower body mass index

• may help decrease your chance of cancer

There are three main types: dark, milk and white. The amount of cocoa solids in chocolate is important because it can be an indicator of the amount of dietary flavonoids or antioxidants, hence the health benefits.

Milk chocolate typically contains about 10 percent cocoa liquor – the paste made from ground, roasted, shelled and fermented cocoa beans that contains both nonfat cocoa solids and cocoa butter – compared with a minimum of 35 percent found in dark chocolate.

White chocolate, however, contains only cocoa butter – no cocoa solids – combined with sugar and other ingredients.

Dark chocolate contains 70 to 85 percent cacao and about 600 calories and 24 grams of sugar. Milk chocolate contains roughly the same number of calories but twice the sugar.

Chocolate can be part of a healthy diet when consumed in moderation.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Sources

20 Health Benefits Of Chocolate (lifehack.org)

Are there health benefits from chocolate? | American Heart Association