Dark chocolate Benefits
In recent years, science has become increasingly aware that consuming moderate amounts of dark chocolate benefits the human body in many new and wonderful ways if partaken on a daily basis. Initially it was thought the heart and blood pressure improvements were, for the most part, the only areas of human health where dark chocolate consumption played a major role.
Now, such thinking is considered outdated and invalid as the expanding benefits of consuming dark chocolate on a daily basis are becoming better known and better appreciated. There might be some validity to the thinking of the Mayan Indians, of Central America, who first realized the value of early forms of chocolate thousands of years ago and called it “The Food of the Gods.”
In addition to heart and blood pressure benefits, dark chocolate has been documented to improve one’s health in many other ways.
Some of those ways include:
* Increase longevity
* Promotes weight loss
* Fights cancer
* Reduces platelet activity; thus providing anti-clotting effect
* Protect skin from free-radicals
To gain the maximum benefit from consumption of dark chocolate, one needs to avoid unhealthy refined sugars, milk fats, and hydrogenated oils. White chocolate and milk chocolate will not provide the benefits that dark chocolate does.
One of the healthiest dark chocolates on the market today is Xocai chocolate. The primary reason for that is that Xocai has a patented technique to cold press chocolate instead cooking the chocolate and losing much of dark chocolate’s most valuable health ingredient … antioxidants.
Scientist are becoming increasingly aware of the value of antioxidants which have the scientific capability of neutralizing free radicals; free radicals fast-becoming the suspected cause of numerous human ailments, including cancer.
One powerful type of antioxidant is catechins, renowned for its ability to fight cancer and prevent heart disease. Interestingly enough, Holland’s National Institute of Public Health and Environment says there are 53.5 mg of catechins in every 100 grams of dark chocolate, well above the catechin content in black and green tea.
Another type of antioxidant seen in great quantity in dark chocolate is flavonoids, known for their anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, and anti-cancer properties.
It was at Harvard University where a study was conducted of 8,000 individuals at an average age of 65 years, and it was learned that those who ate one or two bars of dark chocolate in a month lived, on average, one year longer than those who did not. More amazing, however, was the discovery from that same study that those who consumed moderate levels of dark chocolate had a 36 percent lower risk of sudden death.
Although dark chocolate benefits are regularly attributed to antioxidants such as catechins and flavonoids, the pleasure most people get from eating healthy dark chocolate is physiological as well.
