Nutrition had a very nice and comprehensive editorial on the essence of chocolate. It mentions the recently discovered profitable effects of chocolate on the human physiology often mentioned on this blog.
In short:
Reduction of blood pressure by 6 grams of dark chocolate per day. Probably due to the flavonol epicatechin
Reduction of platelet and endothelial cell activation
Reduction of inflammatory mediators
It can also inhibit oral caries
It can cross the blood brain barrier and increase cerebral blood flow in humans
Rightly the authors question the effects of chocolate on mood and it’s possible addictive potential. As written before on this blog, chocolate is not an antidepressant and chocolate craving is a difficult concept consisting of different features.
The authors explain t...
Nutrition had a very nice and comprehensive editorial on the essence of chocolate. It mentions the recently discovered profitable effects of chocolate on the human physiology often mentioned on this blog.
In short:
Reduction of blood pressure by 6 grams of dark chocolate per day. Probably due to the flavonol epicatechin
Reduction of platelet and endothelial cell activation
Reduction of inflammatory mediators
It can also inhibit oral caries
It can cross the blood brain barrier and increase cerebral blood flow in humans
Rightly the authors question the effects of chocolate on mood and it’s possible addictive potential. As written before on this blog, chocolate is not an antidepressant and chocolate craving is a difficult concept consisting of different features.
The authors explain t...
Recovering alcoholics and addicts have a long history of drinking large amounts of coffee, tea and cola soft drinks.
Coffee, tea, cola drinks, chocolate and many foods contain caffeine. A new range of drinks on the market is a variety of high content caffeine drinks such as Red Bull.
Caffeine, a stimulant, is the most widely consumed drug. Caffeine has occasionally been considered a drug of abuse and has the potential for people to become addicted.
Signs of caffeine addiction are;
Coffee simply stimulates the central nervous system, increases stress hormones in the blood streams, thus making a person feel unnaturally alert. Consequently increased alert state tends to subdue your body’s natural instincts and prevent it from relaxing. This causes undue stress and leads to various kinds...
Recovering alcoholics and addicts have a long history of drinking large amounts of coffee, tea and cola soft drinks.
Coffee, tea, cola drinks, chocolate and many foods contain caffeine. A new range of drinks on the market is a variety of high content caffeine drinks such as Red Bull.
Caffeine, a stimulant, is the most widely consumed drug. Caffeine has occasionally been considered a drug of abuse and has the potential for people to become addicted.
Signs of caffeine addiction are;
Coffee simply stimulates the central nervous system, increases stress hormones in the blood streams, thus making a person feel unnaturally alert. Consequently increased alert state tends to subdue your body’s natural instincts and prevent it from relaxing. This causes undue stress and leads to various kinds...
My favorite part of Valentine's Day is the excuse to eat chocolate. But who needs an excuse when research continues to come in supporting chocolate as more than a delicious indulgence, but a superfood. The latest studies on chocolate have found that it can calm down emotional stress and lower the risk of having a stroke.One clinical trial found that volunteers, who felt that they were highly stressed, experienced a reduction in stress hormones and other stress imbalances after eating one and half ounces of dark chocolate daily for two weeks. Another study found that when 44,489 people ate one serving of chocolate per week they were 22% less likely to have a stroke than people who didn't indulge.Every chocoholic can eat to those findings! (Source: Vibrant Glow)
Tuesday night, I decided to make me a cup of hot chocolate. I grabbed my mug out of the cabinet, poured water inside and placed it in the microwave. I pulled the HOT mug out of the microwave, poured the hot chocolate mix, stirred the mix and water together. I was content. I went to bed. I woke up, my stomach was in pain.
I told Scott what was going on. He said, "I am sorry your stomach hurts but you should have used milk to make hot chocolate instead of water." I don't drink hot chocolate a lot but when I do, I go to Starbucks. I know Starbucks uses milk. I can't figure out when I started using water instead of milk. Oh, wait! I stopped using milk to make hot chocolate when I was diagnosed with diabetes, ea...
I call the 61 days between Halloween and New Year’s “the eating season,” because the temptation to snack on all kinds of crap is intrusive this time of year, with boxes of Belgian chocolate coming in with every client who has paid his bill, cocktail parties with egg-nog and Yule logs, enough pumpkin pie to make you feel like a pumpkin, and trays of Christmas cookies everywhere you turn.
If your brain is as sensitive as mine — sweets turbo charge the brain and then zap it of all its cognitive powers — you, too, have to pull out ever trick of discipline known to man, more even than is used to train those dogs at the airport who can smell pot on a passenger.
Remember this during the eating season: Jesus’ period of temptation ended after 40 days. We got 21 ...
Nice but naughty – our addiction to chocolate
Chocolate is the most widely and frequently craved food. People readily admit to being ‘addicted to chocolate’ or willingly label themselves as ‘chocoholics’. A popular explanation for this is that chocolate contains mood-enhancing (psychoactive) ingredients that give it special appeal.
Evidence and logic, however, find little support for this. [...] (Source: Recovery Is Sexy.com)
Nice but naughty – our addiction to chocolate
Chocolate is the most widely and frequently craved food. People readily admit to being ‘addicted to chocolate’ or willingly label themselves as ‘chocoholics’. A popular explanation for this is that chocolate contains mood-enhancing (psychoactive) ingredients that give it special appeal.
Evidence and logic, however, find little support for this. [...] (Source: Recovery Is Sexy.com)
From the graphic above and down under you can see for each country how much chocolate per person per year (2007) was consumed in kilos. Found this graphic on the site of Alpha Galileo Europe’s site of research news, thanks to David Bradley (@sciencebase).
Eighteen EU countries were among the world’s top 26 chocolate confectioneries consumers in 2007, ranking from 11.85 kg eaten per capita in Ireland, to 4.5 kg in France and 1.04 kg in Poland. The EU 27 consumed in total 2.5 million tons of chocolate products that year, which account for around half of the global consumption world-wide
The post is also about a new method to analyze fats used in the making of chocolate. This is important because according to the Chocolate Directive (Directive 2000/36/EC) it’s only allowed...
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