I slip it reverentially into my mouth. Luscious, gooey, it melts on my taste buds, caresses my tongue. I stop talking, thinking, even breathing. I have but one sense: Taste. I have but one love: Chocolate.
Nanoseconds later, the guilt sets in. I imagine my arteries seizing, my weight soaring. Yet I am powerless: I want more.
What the hell, the voices whisper. Have another piece. After all, chocolate is a “health food.”
Could it be?
A slew of studies – eagerly embraced, not surprisingly, by the American Cocoa Research Institute, the research arm of the Chocolate Manufacturers Association – suggest that chocolate may not only be less sinful than people used to think but may even have some health benefits, taken in moderation, of course.
It’s loaded with disease-fighting antioxidants. It doesn’t cause acne. It’s not addictive. It’s less likely to cause cavities than stickier stuff – including starchy food – that clings to teeth for hours.
It may have no adverse effect on cholesterol. And it’s fairly low in caffeine – you’d have to eat a pound of chocolate to get the amount in a cup of coffee.
The trouble is, even if you believe all that – and I do (though I’m no role model: my four food groups are pasta, wine, chocolate, and Advil) – it’s packed with calories. That’s because, in the form in which we eat it – cookies, fudge, and cakes, though not most candy bars – chocolate is loaded with butter and sugar as well. And while all this may not stick to the teeth, it does stick to the hips.
Chocolate comes from the cacao tree, or theobroma cacao, which grows in tropical regions 20 degrees north and south of the equator. Cacao pods are harvested, then split open to reveal the pulp and beans. After fermentation, the beans are roasted and the shells and seed germ removed to leave the essence, or nib. Nibs are then ground into the goo called chocolate liquor (which is not alcoholic).
Cocoa butter is the fat that’s removed from the liquor. It’s saturated fat, but is composed mostly of the relatively safe stearic acid, not the nasty stuff, palmitic acid. What remains after the cocoa butter is removed is cocoa powder.
To a food chemist, chocolate is complicated stuff. It contains hundreds, maybe thousands, of “phyto,” or plant chemicals, including polyphenols (rings of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms), which act as antioxidants because they sop up destructive molecules called free radicals.
Among the polyphenols, the most important to chocolate chemists are the flavonoids, which contribute the chocolately flavor.
The fact that scientists are even studying chocolate is interesting, says Larry Lindner , executive editor of the Tufts University Health & Nutrition Letter. “This is a food that’s loved in Western culture, so it’s logical that we’d work backwards to attach good benefits to it. . .In Japan, they’re not studying it. We study it in countries where we like to eat it.”
And the study results are tantalizing. “The chemicals found in chocolate, when isolated, do have pharmacological properties,” notes Mindy Kurzer, a nutritionist at the University of Minnesota who has reviewed most of the published studies.
“However, there are no data to my knowledge to show that, at the low levels these compounds are found in chocolate, that they exert any of the hypothesized effects.”
So what do we really know? Here are the tastiest tidbits:
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People do crave it – in fact, chocolate is the most-craved food in America. But it is not truly addictive, even though it does contain pharmacologic, or drug-like, chemicals such as phenylethylamine, tyramine, caffeine, theobromine and the mineral magnesium.
In a study by University of Pennsylvania psychologists, chocolate cravers were given a chocolate bar, a serving of “white chocolate”( which did not contain the drug-like compounds), cocoa capsules (which did), placebo, nothing, or white chocolate plus cocoa. If cravings were physically based, the researchers reasoned, they should be assuaged as readily by cocoa, alone or with white chocolate, as by the real thing.
But only the real chocolate bars reduced cravings, suggesting, says Kurzer, that people crave it “because it tastes great, not because it has any biological effect.”
It’s also suspicious, she says, that while women often say they crave chocolate around their periods, perhaps because of its magnesium, they never crave leafy green veggies, which are also rich in magnesium. The data are mixed on whether chocolate produces consistent improvements in mood.
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Unlike other saturated fats, the stearic acid in cocoa butter seems relatively benign. In fact, it may not affect LDL or “bad” cholesterol at all and may possibly raise HDL, or “good” cholesterol, according to a 1994 study in which Pennsylvania State University scientists followed 15 young men who ate a 1.6 ounce bar of milk chocolate a day.
On balance, chocolate “doesn’t raise cholesterol as much as butter or palm oil. . .You won’t have a heart attack as soon as if you eat butter, but you might have one sooner than if olive oil is your only fat,” says Dr. Scott Grundy, director of the center for human nutrition at the University of Texas/Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.
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And the antioxidants in chocolate may be actively beneficial. At the University of California at Davis, researchers have shown that, in the test tube at least, the antioxidants in cocoa powder are powerful blockers of the oxidation of LDL. (When the LDL on blood vessel walls is oxidized, scientists think, the result is atherosclerosis, which can lead to strokes and heart attacks.)
In the Netherlands, researchers reported recently that dark chocolate may be richest of all in antioxidants, though it’s too soon to conclude that it’s is better for you than milk chocolate, says Harold Schmitz a food chemist who heads the analytical and applied science labs at Mars, Inc., makers of M&Ms and Mars bars.
So far, Schmitz cautions, no one has proved that the antioxidants in chocolate get into the body in high enough doses to help. But there are hints.
Last year, Harvard School of Public Health researchers led by epidemiologist Dr. I-Min Lee studied food questionnaires answered by nearly 8,000 male Harvard graduates and found that those who ate a “moderate” amount of candy – one to three candy bars a month – lived a year longer than those who didn’t.
The study isn’t perfect, as Lee acknowledges. The researchers didn’t separate out sugar candy, which presumably has no redeeming nutritional value, and chocolate. (They’re doing that now.) But she speculates that if the effect is real, it’s probably due to the antioxidants in chocolate.
So, the jury is still out, as it usually is in science. But I’d bet my editor’s salary that as the mythical jurors pore over the studies, they’re munching on M&Ms. I certainly am.
Product
A
B
C
D
Dark chocolate bar (1.4 oz.)
200
100
7
0
Milk chocolate bar (1.4 oz.)
210
120
7
11
Milk chocolate covered raisins (35 pieces)
160
50
3.5
2
Semi-sweet chocolate chips (30 pieces)
70
35
2.5
0
Columns Headings:
A = Total CaloriesB = Calories from fatC = Saturated Fat (grams)D = Cholesterol (mg)
SOURCE: Chocolate Manufacturers Associationhttp://www.chocolateusa.org/Science-and-Nutrition/nutrient-profiles.asp