Reading Time: 2’ 29” || Did You Know? Chocolate Is As Healthy As A Fruit.
This is what chocoholics have always dreamt of hearing. Yes, chocolate is healthy as a fruit. Imagine that!
Scientists have announced that their favourite treat is actually better for them than fruit.
The Latins call chocolate ‘Theobroma Cacao’ which translates to “Food of the Gods”. This is not all just hype as chocolate has been proven to have a heavenly way of lifting your performance and is now even being heralded as a “superfood”.
So yes, you can get stuffing your face with chocolates off your long list of guilty pleasures.
Researchers have proven that chocolate is packed with more healthy plant compounds and antioxidants gram-for-gram than fruit juice and provides far more nutritional goodness than food experts had previously thought.
Sure this news is just as great as when Nigeria won Atlanta 96. Hehe
The verdict came after US scientists compared cocoa powder, the raw ingredient of chocolate, with powders made from fruits like acai berries, blueberries, cranberries and pomegranates, the “super fruits” known for powerful health-giving properties.
Related Article: The Fruit, The Whole Fruit & Nothing But The Fruit..
Research into dark chocolate, containing around 60 percent cocoa, and cocoa drinks found that they too had more antioxidant activity and more flavanols – health-giving plant chemicals – than fruit. The discovery means cocoa beans meet the nutritional criteria needed for fruits to be classed as “super fruits”, according to the scientists at the Hershey Center for Health & Nutrition. Unfortunately, a nice mug of hot chocolate let the theory down as they have a few healthy ingredients because the drink has been processed. Nonetheless, dark chocolate has a long history as a healing plant and mood enhancer and even an aphrodisiac, so feel free to initiate chocolate in your love life and diet. Afterall, chocolate is as healthy as a fruit. Thank us later.
There are many lesser-known benefits of chocolate to the human body ranging from it being a mood enhancer and sexual stimulant as mentioned earlier. Did you also know that chocolate makes you eat less ? Don’t believe us? Check out this study that gave participants a 100g serving of either milk or dark chocolate two hours before a lunch buffet. Results showed that participants who had the dark chocolate had a 17% lower calorie intake compared to the other group of participants who had white chocolate.
See research here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3302125/#!po=22.7273
On edge about your cardiovascular health? Well, stop worrying and eat chocolate! Thanks to various studies, results showed that adults who eat up to 3.5 ounces of chocolate a day have lower rates of heart diseases.
What else don’t you know about the benefits of chocolate, you ask? This next fact is going to blow your mind, especially for the ladies. That glow you’ve been trying to achieve lies in that chocolate bar. You read right! Chocolate can help in preserving healthy skin by harmonizing a healthy blood flow which in turn also protects your skin from the sun.
“The compounds in dark chocolate are just as good as the botanical compounds in fruit,” said Dr Debra Miller.
“Dark chocolate needs to be considered as more of a tropical fruit like avocado which has a high-fat content so you need to moderate the calories side of things,” said Dr Miller. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.
So you see that chocolate has actually been doing more good contrary to popular belief and there you have it, It’s definitely goodbye to the feeling of guilt overreaching for just one more bar between meals.
And if you haven’t been doing so, go ahead and infiltrate some chocolate in your diet.
Let’s continue this conversation in the comments. Tell us, are you a chocolate lover and are you excited now that you know chocolate is as healthy as a fruit?
Other resources
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110207073748.htm
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-02/bc-cia020411.php
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Disclaimer: Contents of this post are not entirely ours as some facts stated are findings from previously carried out research. Whatever you choose to indulge in, do so in moderation.
