Valentine’s Day is a good reason for chocolate

Choco­late can­dies left over from the Christ­mas hol­i­days were stashed with the dec­o­ra­tions. I knew that I had at least one half of a bag of bite size choco­late bars put away for a rainy day and I went on the hunt.

When I found them I knew why they were buried beneath the wrap­ping paper and rib­bons. The bitty bars of good­ness were just the fuel that I needed to crank out an arti­cle on the health ben­e­fits of choco­late at Valentine’s Day.

Choco­late is a highly pop­u­lar food that is often mis­un­der­stood. I com­pre­hend choco­late. Each Amer­i­can con­sumes an aver­age of 11 pounds a year. I eat my share.

Choco­late is part taste and part mem­ory. This divinely deli­cious sweet is often cheaper than ther­apy when the world comes crash­ing down around me. Choco­late is to food what silk and vel­vet is to cloth­ing. It is a true del­i­cacy with many avid fans, includ­ing me.

It seems that choco­late has an unusual capac­ity to inter­act with body and brain chem­istry. Although there are about 300 chem­i­cal com­pounds asso­ci­ated with the cocoa bean, few have been sin­gled out as hav­ing ther­a­peu­tic effects. Since it is such a unique plant prod­uct, its taste and pop­u­lar­ity can­not be com­pared. Choco­late is in a class by itself.

Choco­late has a rel­a­tively small amount of caf­feine. One ounce has as much as a 6 oz. cup of decaf­feinated cof­fee, 6 mg. It also con­tains a con­sid­er­able amount of the chem­i­cal com­pounds, theo­bromine and phenylethy­lamine. These sub­stances can enhance the action of hor­mones and can act as brain stim­u­lants. They are believed to con­tribute to a tem­po­rary sense of well-being and I love it.

Stud­ies have revealed that dark choco­late belongs in a heart healthy diet as an antiox­i­dant agent. Accord­ing to an Ital­ian study, a small square (20 g) of dark (bit­ter­sweet) choco­late every three days is the ideal dose for car­dio­vas­cu­lar ben­e­fits. Eat­ing more does not pro­vide addi­tional ben­e­fits. A 1.4 oz. candy bar of dark choco­late is 228 calo­ries, 25 gm car­bo­hy­drates, 2 gm pro­tein and 13 gm fat. One half of that candy bar is 20 grams, a small square.

The antiox­i­dant affect has been doc­u­mented as the power of polyphe­nols found in the cocoa bean. They are more com­plex than those found in any other food and have a more ben­e­fi­cial effect; that is, four times more pow­er­ful than green tea. Researchers have con­cluded that choco­late sup­ports the immune sys­tem and car­dio­vas­cu­lar health.

Rumor has it that nine out of 10 peo­ple like choco­late, the tenth per­son always lies. I’ll admit that I’ve never met a piece of choco­late that I didn’t like. An addic­tion is a seri­ous med­ical con­di­tion and a choco­late lover can exhibit an addictive-like behav­ior; but the desire for choco­late is a strong bio­log­i­cal crav­ing, not an addiction.

Go ahead and enjoy this delec­table con­fec­tionary. Take your time eat­ing your Valentine’s Day choco­lates. Treat your taste buds to a flood of more than 500 fla­vors that can­not be found any­where else in nature. Bite slowly. Let the choco­late essence cover your teeth and the melted choco­late slowly slide down your throat. Make it last because mod­er­a­tion is the key. Happy Valentine’s Day.

Bob­bie Ran­dall is a cer­ti­fied dia­betes edu­ca­tor, reg­is­tered, licensed dietit­ian. She super­vises a dia­betes self-management train­ing pro­gram at Aultman-Orrville Hos­pi­tal, Orrville. Con­tact her at bobbie.randall@aultmanorrville.org or 330–684-4776.

Posted by Bobbie Randall on Feb 8 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.