The Medicinal Benefits of Chocolate

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We all know chocolate is just sin on a spoon, right? Well, it turns out that this food that health nuts love to hate is packed with health benefits. Recent scientific research shows that this powerhouse nutrient increases a sense of well-being, fights oxidation in body tissues, stimulates pleasure centers and the immune system, and may even help you live longer.

Chocolate was originally an herbal medicine. Spaniards who drank liquid cocoa with the Aztec emperor Montezuma called it “the Indian Nectar” and were impressed by its ability to enhance alertness and treat indigestion.

Chocolate is probably one of our most complicated foods. There are literally thousands of chemical compounds in an ordinary chocolate bar, the result of grinding and roasting the cocoa beans. Here’s what researchers are discovering about some of these chemicals.

How to use cocoa without sugar

Pure cocoa powder is potent herbal medicine. But watch out for the not-so-healthy ingredients such as saturated fat and sugar that are often added to it.

While you could take pure cocoa in capsule or tincture form, you would have to take a lot to gain any benefits, and you would miss the taste! Here are some healthy alternatives.

• For a quick chocolate fix, mix 1 teaspoon cocoa (or to taste) with yogurt or sliced fruit.

• Make your own cocoa soy pudding. Blend 1 tablespoon of cocoa with 1/2 pound of silken tofu and sweeten as desired with date sugar, maple syrup, or other unrefined sweetener.

• Stir up a smoothie by blending cocoa with fruit and milk, soy milk, or frozen yogurt.

• Brew up a chocolate coffee substitute, using coarsely ground, roasted cocoa beans. Using approximately the same amount of ground cocoa as you would coffee, brew in a drip coffee maker for a bitter beverage much like modern coffee.

Longevity. A study published in a 1998 issue of British Medical Journal shows that a few pieces of chocolate every month may make your life longer. Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston studied more than 7,800 men participating in the Harvard alumni health study. Taking the men’s ages, weights, and smoking status into account, the researchers calculated that moderate candy eating added nearly a year to the men’s lives, up to age ninety-five. The researchers speculated that the benefits were from the chocolate the subjects ate.

Antioxidants. Two studies—one published in 1998 in Journal of Nutritional Science and Vitaminology and another in 1996 in Lancet—have demonstrated that chocolate is high in potent antioxidants called polyphenols. These are the same beneficial antioxidants found in red wine. A 41-g piece of chocolate (roughly 1.5 ounces) contains about the same amount of these compounds as a glass of red wine. The major phenols purified from chocolate are epicatechin and catechin, substances also found in green tea, another touted source of antioxidants.

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