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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – Chocolate that is! Chocolate is the most popular candy we eat and in general, the news isn’t all bad. In fact, it’s rare that any single food is “bad” when we eat just a little. It’s Halloween this week, (our children will be bringing home lots of candy) and I think that if we eat just a little bit of chocolate we can have our sweets, keep our healthy eating, and not gain weight too. Chocolate is a food though, that many of us tend to eat a little too much of once we get going. Why?
Because it’s in our genes! Loving chocolate candy and other sweets isn’t our fault since we’re born with a preference for them! In fact, it’s part of our evolutionary biology since we need sugar for survival (yes sugar!). Our brain only uses sugar (in the form of glucose) as its fuel source, and our body prefers it for its fuel source to make energy. Studies on infants have confirmed this innate preference of ours because infants show an instant like for sweets versus the other primary tastes.
Okay, here’s the sweet truth,
1 oz. of milk chocolate contains about 140 calories ( ugh, think about how little an ounce is!).
1 oz. of chocolate contains about 1 packet of sugar (so if we eat 5 pieces, it equals about 5 packets of sugar).
1 oz. of chocolate on the average amount has 9 grams of fat ( about 55% of the total calories). Of course, expensive chocolates usually contain more fat than their less expensive cousins, and therefore they contain more calories (aren’t they tastier though?).
Chocolate contains fiber. Yes, I said fiber! 1 oz. has about 1 gram.
Chocolate can raise our blood pressure if we’re taking a MAO inhibitor (this reaction can happen if we’re taking St. John’s Wort also). 1 oz. of chocolate will usually not elicit this side effect, but some of us may be sensitive.
Chocolate also contains several chemical compounds, which have drug like effects. One chemical is similar to marijuana, another has stimulant properties like caffeine and yet another will trigger a response similar to a neurotransmitter involved in addiction reinforcement (no wonder we feel good eating it and we can’t just easily stop!). In fact, one study on infants showed that these compounds coupled with sugar can relieve pain! Are we really surprised that many of us broken-hearted eat chocolate?
Chocolate, specifically dark chocolate, also contains phenolic phytochemicals (theaflavin, epigallocatechin gallate, resveratrol, and procyanidin) compounds from the cocoa plant known for their antioxidant properties! The same type of phyto found in red wine, grapes and onions which is heart and blood vessel healthy (sorry, I like to recommend eating red grapes to reap this benefit although pound for pound this cocoa bean has shown to have even higher antioxidant power but unfortunately it also has too many calories when we eat it in chocolate!).
So, what’s a chocolate lover to do? Let’s enjoy a little bit at a time, but in order for us to do this without really trying, let’s eat our chocolate after eating a “protein” food first. This can be any snack or meal that is high in protein. So even if we’re not hungry, if we have a small protein snack first, we will slow down how fast that tasty piece of chocolate candy (should I say plural candy?) is absorbed into our blood stream. The longer it takes for our chocolate candy to be absorbed, the slower our blood sugar will rise and fall, along with the drug- like effects that contribute to the “I can’t stop at one or two pieces”. It will also slow down how fast our brain will take to crave more drugs, in this case the tastiest one I know, chocolate.
Eating too much chocolate? Contact me for information on the new “10-week Personalized Get- in- Shape” Programs by emailing me or go http://www.junefit.com/serviceshp.htm Also offered, “Personal Exercise Only” Programs designed to strengthen, condition, increase flexibility, and more with Ed Irace! Services provided in NYC, and nationally through Skype web service, email and phone.
Happy Halloween!
June M. Lay M.S.
JuneFit
Want to know more about Chocolate? Check out this wonderful, educational site The Field Museum partially sponsored by the National Science Foundation http://archive.fieldmuseum.org/chocolate/about.html
Junefit is included in Google’s top ranked women’s health resources http://directory.google.com/Top/Health/Women’s_Health/Resources/
June is Lifestyle Editor at www.healthnewsdigest.com/news/index.shtml
(C) Junefit, 2011
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