At the end of National Chocolate Week, it is offical, chocolate is good for....

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

.... your heart if not your waistline!

A daily dose of dark chocolate could do wonders for your heart health, research shows.

They found 600 milligrams a day of flavanol-rich cocoa - like pure hot cocoa or natural dark chocolate - dramatically decreases your risk of developing heart disease.
Flavanols are antioxidants that naturally occur in cocoa, as well as some fruits, vegetables, tea and red wine.
Cocoa flavanols are a unique blend of phytonutrients that can only be found in the cocoa bean.
They keep up a healthy flow of oxygen in the blood, driving nutrients to your organs.
According to co-author Dr Simin Liu, their findings could transform prevention techniques in the field of diabetes and heart disease.

In general, Lin said, where there were benefits they were evident for both women and men and didn't depend on what physical form the flavanol-rich cocoa product was consumed in - dark chocolate vs. a beverage, for example.
'The treatment groups of the trials included in our meta-analysis are primarily dark chocolate - a few were using cocoa powder-based beverages,' Lin said.
'Therefore, the findings from the current study apparently shouldn't be generalized to different sorts of chocolate candies or white chocolates, of which the content of sugar/food additives could be substantially higher than that of the dark chocolate.'
Liu noted some limitations in the trials.
All studies were small and of short duration, and none of the studies were designed to test directly whether cocoa flavanol consumption leads to reduced cases of heart attacks or type 2 diabetes.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3838839/Rejoice-Chocolate-good-heart-scientists-declare-clearest-evidence-date.html#ixzz4N7SHdhqe

 

[Caribbean girl]

Well this is definitely good news since I tend to like any kind of chocolate. I have been hearing for quite some time that dark chocolate is good for our health, even more so than the regular chocolate. I do drink chocolate beverages regularly, but never really considered the health benefits of doing so.

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

Well this is definitely good news since I tend to like any kind of chocolate. I have been hearing for quite some time that dark chocolate is good for our health, even more so than the regular chocolate. I do drink chocolate beverages regularly, but never really considered the health benefits of doing so.

It is only dark chocolate and pure cocoa powder (so only pure cocoa powder that you (may) need to sweeten yourself, not the stuff with milk powder & sugar added). Milk chocolate and obviously white chocolate (which contains no actually cocoa) don't have the same quantities of flavinols and also have a much higher level of milk and sugar products which appear to negate the benefits.