It’s Easter, or the crème egg season as some may call it. Right after the New Year started, Tesco and all the other stores already started lining out the Easter eggs, which many of us chocolate fans probably have indulged in already. But is all this chocolate healthy for us?
Dark chocolate, most importantly the cocoa found in it, has been proven to help your cardiovascular system by reducing the risk of heart attacks and decreasing blood pressure by relaxing blood vessels. Chocolate even has antioxidants that are nutritionally beneficial to eaters by reducing cancer and diabetes risk and increasing good cholesterol. Chocolate also increases the amount of feel-good chemicals in our bodies, lifting your spirits with just one bite! It is also an antidepressant. All this is great news, isn’t it?
However, with the good comes the bad. It’s not actually the chocolate that gives you the sense of euphoria, but the sugar that makes blood sugar rise and leaves you with that great feeling.
It’s good to eat it in small amounts as long as you have an otherwise healthy diet. An ounce of chocolate has an enormous amount of fat, which we do not want to worry about with the upcoming summer and beach visits! Overeating chocolate can also increase the risk of heart disease – too much of anything is not really beneficial at all! Over eating can also lead to obesity. Dark chocolate is still a high calorie, high fat food, so should be used in moderation.
Milk chocolate has low cocoa, which is the main factor in all this healthy goodness, so it has few benefits. It can cause heart, lung, kidney and liver problems. So for the extremely health conscious chocolate eaters, stick to dark chocolate. For other eaters, remember – moderation!
Karlansia Mills
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