Is chocolate healthy?

Sometimes dreams really come true - chocolate can be good for us. Unfortunately, when it comes to health, not all chocolates are created the same. In fact, it is not in fact chocolate that has advantages for humans, but cocoa from which chocolate is made. Pure cocoa, a raw product derived from cocoa bean processing, is made for chocolate combinations with various combinations of cocoa butter, cocoa alcohol, sugar, dairy products, vanilla and often emulsifier such as soy lecithin. The finished product, although it tastes much better than bitter cocoa beans, has lost many of its healthy qualities on its way to become the sweet cream treatment we love. Studies have shown that, like the fruits and vegetables we consume, the cocoa plant contains the phytochemicals. Cocoa has a particularly high concentration of these compounds, specific known as flavanoids. The presence of flavanoids suggests that the cocoa plant is full of antioxidants that are known to fight free radicalscausing cancer and heart disease. Medical and scientists have found that other energy foods such as green tea and red wine have high concentrations of these compounds fighting diseases. Research has shown that the amount of antioxidants in cocoa is significantly larger than green tea or red wine.

Another research has shown that the consumption of chocolate can have pharmacological effects on people. Cocoa can stimulate the release of serotonin in the human brain and even has similar effects changing the mood on passionate kissing and opiate drugs. The cocoa compounds, which are expected to affect the human brain, include theobromine, tryptophan, anandamide, femethyamine and caffeine. Studies of pharmacological effects of cocoa are promising but broken.

cocoa has been used as a traditional recovery method since the beginning of the 15th century in Europe, but originally used by traditional people of the New World - Maya,Aztec and Olmec. Traditionally, the most widespread medicinal use of cocoa has been like a treatment for people with underweight, a stimulant for the nervous system or exhaustion, and as a treatment of poor digestion. It is also known that the cocoa plant treats hair loss, cough, water retention, rheumatism, dry lips and used as antiseptics for burns and wounds.

It seems that cocoa is a super-plant, but what about chocolate? Unfortunately, common preparation of chocolate has a high content of fat, sugar and calories. The amount of cocoa, and therefore chocolate that one would have to enjoy to take advantage of any health benefits, would be far from the risk of ingestion of extra fat, sugar and calories. Some research even shows that milk and dairy products that are part of most chocolate products can disrupt the healthy effects of cocoa. As a rule, experts suggest dark chocolate and cocoa powder over milk chocolate, white chocolate and hot cocoa mixture. The equivalent amount of calories should be removed elsewhere in the diet,Because obesity is a threat to heart health.