You’ve probably seen the jokes floating around that go something like, “I want a salad…but a salad that is mostly tomatoes and cheese, no lettuce, on a really, really big crouton. A pizza…I want a pizza.” Or, “chocolate comes from cocoa, which grows on trees so it’s basically a fruit. Chocolate is a fruit salad.” While these memes might stretch the truth a little bit, chocolate at least should not be relegated to the junk food pile just yet.
Chocolate or more specifically the cocoa chocolate is made from, is linked to a reduction in heart disease and lower blood pressure. It contains many bioactive components like vitamins, minerals, polyphenols and fatty acids. It is also supportive of mental health and has been documented to improve the mental state of expecting mothers. One article stated that because there is a high level of flavanols in chocolate, it has antiallergic, anti-viral, anti inflammatory and anticancer properties. It even reduces the chance of a woman developing type 2 diabetes by reducing their insulin resistance. It would seem that the benefit of chocolate is more significant for people assigned female at birth, possibly because of their hormonal makeup or maybe some other feature we don‘t totally understand yet.
Historically, chocolate was used in many cultures for its medicinal purposes and was even referred to as the “food of the gods”. With Nestle and the introduction of ingredients like condensed powdered milk and large amounts of sugar, chocolate’s common usage as a medicine started to see a significant decline.
Polyphenols could have a discussion all their own but the presence of their flavanols subset in chocolate pushes chocolate into an almost superfood tier when it comes to cognitive function. In fact, one study made their entire purpose to figure out if chocolate consumption in a country resulted in a higher cognitive function on average for that country! They did this by taking the chocolate consumption for the country and examining it with regard to how many Nobel laureates there were in each country. The results supported the hypothesis that chocolate consumption enhances intelligence.
As you might imagine, milk chocolate yields less of these beneficial characteristics and white chocolate isn’t really chocolate in the strictest sense. The addition of milk and sugar undercuts a lot of the benefits so if you are eating chocolate for your health as well as your enjoyment, dark chocolate, minimally processed, is the way to go.