Healthy Chocolate - Chocolate that is Good for you

By: Joseph Cobb
Submitted: 2007-01-17 16:17:40
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Chocolate is not all about sweet things and cravings. Of course, this is all that anyone thinks about usually when consuming the delicious substance. What most people don’t consider is the health benefits of chocolate. While eating chocolate, one should stop and consider what they are eating. Is it good for them? What is in it? How will it effect their health?

These are some things that should be considered when selecting a chocolate to buy because chocolate is more then just another sweet treat.

The health benefits of chocolate are dependant on certain key ingredients being present in certain amounts. Studies have shown that eating 50 grams a day of plain dark chocolate with a minimum content of 70% chocolate solids can be beneficial to your health, providing protection against heart disease, high blood pressure, and more as well as providing trace elements and nutrients essential to good health such as iron, calcium, potassium, and vitamins A, B1, C, D, and E.

As you can see the conditions necessary to reap these rewards are limited. One has to be selective in the chocolate they purchase to gain these boons. Most mass produced chocolate opts for cheaper ingredients which replace many of the elements that occur naturally in chocolate to provide these health benefits. The process to refine the chocolate and retain many of these elements is costly. This is one way to detect good chocolate is based on the price. Cheap chocolate is, well to put it simply, cheap; it does not cost very much. That’s not to say it does not taste any good, but the health elements are not present.

A good way to locate good chocolate is, like I said above, the price. Other ways include reputation, such as Swiss, Belgium, or German chocolate have reputations for being good chocolate. Also, if at all possible note the ingredients, namely the presents of cocoa solids in the percentages per serving. Look around, don’t be lazy and buy the first thing you come across. Study up, and pay attention and you will soon be enjoying some of the worlds finest chocolate, and reaping the health rewards as well.

Joe Cobb
Website: Forever-Chocolates.com
June 18, 2006

Article source: Expert Articles

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