Dark Chocolate and Your Health

These days, dark chocolate is getting a lot of attention in the media because of its reputed health benefits. But where there's hype, you're almost sure to find misinformation. So while chocolate can be an excellent nutritional resource, I'd like to separate fact from fiction so that you can make smart decisions about the role chocolate plays in your life.

All chocolate is made from the cacao bean, and this is where the health benefits really come from. Cacao is possibly the number one food source of both magnesium (the #1 dietary deficiency in America) and antioxidants. It also boasts a number of neurotransmitters, which make chocolate such an outstanding "feel good" food. (These can help to regulate brain function, sleep, hormones, and more.)

And contrary to popular belief, there is probably no caffeine at all in cacao. There is a similar element to it, but the lift it gives is not like the jittery lift of caffeine.

To make chocolate from cacao, however, other ingredients are added, and this is where you have to be careful. Dairy products (as found in milk chocolate) and sugar (found in almost all chocolate) both diminish the health benefits of the cacao. Couple this to the fact that most cacao sources are not organic, and you've got an unhealthy mix of milk, sugar, and toxins competing with the nutritional value of cacao.

It's also useful to point out that you can tell a lot about a chocolate by comparing grams of sugar with grams per serving. Many will claim to be low in sugar because the serving size is relatively small; but the percentage of sugar per serving is typically between 25% and 50%.

Because of this, most chocolate would qualify as candy rather than as a health supplement. This includes a few being heavily promoted as "healthy chocolate," even though they're not organic and they're loaded with sugar. (Note: they're even targeted toward dieters and diabetics, which is extraordinarily misleading. Sugar -- even with pretty names like "cane sugar juice," etc. -- spikes blood sugar levels.)

If you're going to eat chocolate as a candy, then you can spend money on whatever tastes best to you. But if you're going to spend it on chocolate as a health supplement -- and chocolate can be among the best -- then you'll have to invest more, because better ingredients are going into it.

For instance, by spending more, you can get chocolate made from organic ingredients. You can get chocolate that replaces sugar with healthy, natural alternatives like xylitol or agave nectar. And in some cases, you can find raw chocolate that preserves all the nutritional value of the original cacao beans.

After reviewing all of the potentially healthy chocolate I could get my hands on, I've found only two that I'm willing to promote because they're actually healthy. Most of the others fail in at least two ways: they're not organic, and they're sweetened with unhealthy sugar.

I go into a great deal of detail about everything you could want to know on chocolate on a different site, set up specifically for this purpose: Healthy Dark Chocolate Reviews.

As a summary, here are the two chocolates I recommend:

Gnosis Chocolate

This chocolate is sold through a traditional retail setting, and is the one we now carry in the Biophysics Center. (We never carried chocolate before, but then we didn't know that such healthy chocolate was an option for our clients!) This chocolate is made by hand, uses no soy lecithin as a short cut for good consistency, is organic, is sweetened with agave nectar (safe for diets and diabetics!), and includes an assortment of wonderful ingredients like crystal manna (a form of blue/green algae). Best of all, it's RAW, preserving all the health benefits of the raw cacao bean.

This is a rich, soft chocolate bar that has captured just about everyone we've given samples to. Even at $8.95 per bar, it sells quickly because of its amazing taste and extraordinary quality as a food.

Tru Chocolate

This chocolate is sold through a network marketing (MLM) structure, and is the ONLY MLM chocolate worth investing in. The others are not organic and are sweetened with sugar.

Tru Chocolate is sweetened with xylitol (a natural birch sugar alcohol), which itself offers several health benefits; it's good for your teeth and has anti-bacterial qualities, among other things. It helps to balance blood sugar levels, so is an excellent option for dieters and diabetics. Tru Chocolate is also organic, and includes a proprietary herbal mixture aimed at enhancing the flavor and stimulating metabolism.

Tru Chocolate also has an unusual quality because of one of the ingredients. It actually holds the sweet chocolate flavor on your tongue for up to 30 minutes. So after eating a piece, you can drink a big glass of water and it will ALL TASTE SWEET; some say it tastes like chocolate. This is a great way to get yourself drinking more water, which is especially beneficial for those trying to lose weight. Eat a piece of this before every meal and follow it with a large glass of water. This will help to diminish appetite at meal times, and replaces unhealthy snacking.

Like any chocolate that honestly qualifies as a health supplement, Tru Chocolate is more expensive than most retail chocolate. It costs the same per ounce as Gnosis Chocolate (see above), but of course because of the MLM structure through which it is sold, there is an opportunity to share it with others and to actually make money from it.

We intentionally carry a retail chocolate in addition to the MLM chocolate since some people are uncomfortable with network marketing; also because Gnosis Chocolate is a phenomenal food. And of course you can purchase Tru Chocolate without ever referring it to others.

If you ARE interested in the income opportunity, however, I would strongly encourage you to learn more about Tru Chocolate and the opportunity by clicking here. Not only is it the healthiest MLM chocolate on the market, but it is just launching in May 2008. I am personally on the second level down from the CEO, and may get involved with developing marketing materials for the company. (We're arranging to talk by phone.)

So again, if you're looking for an opportunity, I cannot emphasize what an unusual situation this is. Click on that link above to learn more about the opportunity; and on that site, you'll have the chance to learn all about chocolate, about Tru Chocolate, and about its competition. You'll also find a link for joining the opportunity under me (Steve McCardell) and my cell # if you want to call with questions. You can also call me here at the Biophysics Center.

Thanks for reading! I hope this helps to steer you straight on your search for healthy chocolate.