A Perfect Excuse to Indulge Your Sweet Tooth
It was the most delicious kind of error that could ever happen...
On a blustery Friday morning, a malfunction occurred at the Lindt & Sprüngli factory in the small town of Olten, Switzerland.
Something went awry with the ventilation system for cooling roasted cocoa nibs. Roasted cocoa nibs are bits of unhusked cacao beans. These tiny pieces sport a bitter, chocolatey taste with a crunch.
They're the main ingredient in the most popular candy products in the U.S.
The malfunction launched a fine brown powder into the air. High winds blew the grains away from the factory all across the town, leaving cars and houses coated in dark-brown specks.
Residents said it was like chocolate snow falling from the sky.
While you might not want the hassle of cleaning chocolate off of your home and car, most of us regularly crave a bit of the sweet stuff, especially this time of year. The good news is that chocolate, specifically the dark variety, is good for your health.
The key ingredient making chocolate a powerhouse for heart health is a naturally occurring chemical in plants called polyphenol. Among the many types of polyphenols, there's a class of them called flavonoids. And flavonoids can be broken down into subgroups like flavonols, flavanols, flavanones... you get the idea.
Chocolate, or the cocoa part, is chock-full of flavanols, which have antioxidant powers. That means they can neutralize unstable molecules called free radicals. The instability makes these free radicals very chemically reactive.
While we need free radicals to help kill harmful pathogens and for other biological processes that keep us alive, free radicals can react with nearby cells and damage them. So having too many free radicals – and not enough antioxidants – can lead to a state of oxidative stress, which can cause DNA damage, cell death, and inflammation. And longtime readers know that oxidative stress can also increase your risk of developing heart disease and certain forms of cancer.
So, eating antioxidants like flavonoids in fruits and vegetables (and chocolate, tea, and wine, too) is thought to keep your free radicals balanced and your body healthy.
For instance, a recent small study from the U.K. showed that eating flavanol-rich cocoa can help your body bounce back from stress better. The 23 healthy young adults who participated in the study ate a meal with a side of milk with cocoa powder and then took a timed math test. Researchers found that the group of participants who ate high-flavanol cocoa had stable or improved blood-vessel function 90 minutes later. The low-flavanol group saw worse blood-vessel function.
Speaking of healthy blood vessels, we know that another way of wreaking havoc on your blood vessels is by constantly having high blood-sugar levels. And that's the hallmark symptom of diabetes...
Published in last Wednesday's BMJ, a study spanning at least three decades and of nearly 200,000 American adults showed that dark-chocolate lovers could have a 21% lower rate of Type 2 diabetes. That was among the participants who ate at least 5 ounces of dark chocolate each week. But that benefit didn't extend to those who ate milk chocolate, where those folks were more likely to pack on the pounds instead.
Diabetes also happens to be a huge risk factor for cardiovascular disease. And in June, a meta-analysis published that month examined 31 randomized-controlled trials on dark-chocolate or cocoa-extract consumption. The studies involved nearly 2,000 adults with at least one health condition putting them at risk of cardiovascular disease.
Compared with the participants who ingested a placebo or chocolate with less than 70% cocoa, the chocolate lovers enjoyed health advantages like lower levels of total cholesterol and LDL (low-density lipoprotein, or "bad") cholesterol, lower fasting blood glucose, and lower blood-pressure numbers.
So the takeaway is to ditch the milk chocolate in favor of dark chocolate with a high percentage of cocoa for more antioxidants and flavonoids. Here's how to shop for the right kind of chocolate...
Look on the packaging of dark chocolate for a cocoa percentage. Lots of cheap dark chocolate probably has about 45% cocoa (with a lot of added sugar). But you'll want to look for chocolate that contains at least 70% cocoa to reap the benefits. (Note that a higher percentage means the chocolate is more bitter. So an 85% dark chocolate will be much more bitter and less sweet than 70%.)
Finally, if you're worried about heavy-metal contamination in your dark chocolate, don't panic...
Not many people will eat so much chocolate that they'll poison themselves with lead and cadmium. Still, if you're concerned, do these three things:
- Make chocolate a treat... something for special occasions rather than an everyday indulgence. Moderation is key with sweets even when there isn't a risk of cadmium or lead contamination.
- Be more selective about the chocolate you eat. Consumer Reports tested 28 dark-chocolate bars, finding that five particular chocolates had the lowest concentrations of cadmium and lead. If you'll be guzzling chocolate, consider one of these:
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- Mast's Organic Dark Chocolate (80% cacao)
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- Ghirardelli's Intense Dark Chocolate (86% cacao)
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- Valrhona's Abinao Dark Chocolate (85% cacao)
- Lastly, you can eat certain foods that will bind to toxic metals (specifically cadmium and lead) and help usher them out of your body.
Studies have shown that foods and beverages high in essential metals like zinc, calcium, and iron... vitamins B1, B6, C, and E... and protective phytochemicals like quercetin, catechin, anthocyanin, and curcumin help protect you from cadmium and lead buildup. These foods include berries, ginger, green tea, lemon water, and turmeric.
Speaking of your blood vessels, did you know that they contain an "internal clock"... just like all of the other parts of your body? And that you can even suffer jet lag... on land? I talked about this recently in an issue of my flagship newsletter Retirement Millionaire. (If you're not a subscriber, here's how to get a 30-day, risk-free trial.)
What We're Reading...
- Something different: How the weirdest store in the mall survived the retail apocalypse.
Here's to our health, wealth, and a great retirement,
Dr. David Eifrig and the Health & Wealth Bulletin Research Team
December 10, 2024