Happy Valentine's Day

It is the day for lovers all over....Valentine's Day! I personally love chocolate (hint, hint to my husband), and just in case you may be getting some chocolate from your sweetheart, I thought I would remind you of the health benefits of chocolate.

Have a wonderful day with your sweetie!

I am leaving to go to Budapest (yes, in Hungary) today for a conference, so I will probably not be posting for a week. I will definitely write all about my adventures when I get back!

Photo of chocolate heart tower courtesy of emilywjones

Labels: chocolate, Tara Gidus

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Perfect Eater

I love salt, fat, and sugar. There...I said it! I know...I am a dietitian and everyone assumes that I eat perfectly all the time and my favorite food is broccoli. Well, if you have been reading my blog for any length of time you know that my vices are chocolate, sweets, and more chocolate. Oh, and cheese curds from Wisconsin. And saganaki, flaming Greek cheese. All of my friends know that I get the corner piece of birthday cake and I often get boxes of chocolate as gifts (and this Christmas was no exception!). In fact, my dad gave me a mug that says, "I want chocolate and I want it NOW!" Of course, it was filled with my favorite mint meltaways. My in-laws sent me a box of See's truffles. Yummy.

I asked my husband the other day if he thinks I am a fraud because everyone knows what a sweet eater I am. I wonder if they wonder what kind of dietitian I am because they see me eating dessert whenever they see me.

His response was wonderful. He said, "You practice what you preach. You don't need to eat perfectly all of the time. 80% of the time you eat really healthy (mostly at home) and 20% of the time you have treats like your chocolate. I think it is good for people to see you eating sweets and dessert because they can see how thin you are and still are able to eat those things."

He is right, of course. I know we aren't supposed to worry about what other people think, but sometimes I do feel like people are watching what I eat because of my profession. And it does so happen that I eat less healthy when I am out to eat or at social gatherings.

I guess the moral of the story is: There is no such thing as a "perfect eater." I am certainly not perfect, but the majority of my diet is lean protein, whole grains, fruits, vegetables. Chocolate is a necessity for me. Figure out what your food passion is and eat it in moderation. And don't feel guilty about it! Enjoy!

Picture of chocolates courtesy of Euromagic

Labels: chocolate, Tara Gidus

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Chocolate Fun Facts

I had so much fun writing the Health By Chocolate blog that I didn't save enough room for fun facts about chocolate. This post will be dedicated only to fun but interesting and fairly useless facts about chocolate.

Fun Facts

• Monkeys were the first to find the cacao plant edible and delectable, not man. The monkeys would eat the pulp and spit out the beans. Ancient people followed the monkeys’ example, and only ate the delicious pulp. This was probably what Mother Nature had in mind: the seeds were disseminated throughout Mesoamerica, making cacao trees plentiful in South and Central America and guaranteeing cacao’s evolution.
• The Aztecs thought it gave their warriors strength.
• Early doctors used to prescribe it to cure ailments.
• Aztecs called it "xocoatl" for bitter water.
• Mayan burial tombs have been found that contain offerings, including ancient potteries that bear witness to cacao’s importance. The vases are covered with paintings showing Mayan gods fighting over beans and kings waiting to be served cacao creations.
• Africa generates 70% of cocoa beans in the world.
• Latin America and the Caribbean also produce a fair amount of chocolate.
• Like wine, chocolate reflects the distinct flavors of the region where it is grown. Click here to see how the flavors vary by country.
• The cocoa bean goes through an amazing 8 step process in order to become chocolate.

Cocoa vs Cocao
Cacao (pronounced Ka-Kow) refers to the tree and the beans inside the pods
Cocoa (pronounced K0-Ko) refers to the two byproducts of the cocoa bean, the cocoa butter and the cocoa powder

Ever wonder what the difference is between baking, bittersweet, and semisweet chocolate?

Want to try all kinds of different chocolate? Here are some tips on how to set up your own chocolate tasting party! Please make sure you send me an invitation! :-)

Or you could learn how to pair wine and chocolate together.

To learn how to cook with Chocolate, click here
For chocolate recipes, visit www.allchocolate.com/recipes

Photos courtesy of www.allchocolate.com

Labels: chocolate, Tara Gidus

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Health By Chocolate

If you are a chocolate lover like me, I am sure you have heard the news about chocolate being good for you. Is it true or is this just another one of those foods that is good for us one day only to be found bad for us another day?

Chocolate comes from the seeds of the fruit of the Theobromo cacao tree. These seeds are rich in phytochemicals, specifically the flavanols.

Potential health benefits

• Chocolate research has picked up for the past 20 years, and some of the findings are as follows:
• May reduce blood pressure in people who are hypertensive
• May improve insulin sensitivity in healthy adults
• May improve endothelial function, which affects blood flow in the heart.
• May decrease LDL cholesterol levels
• Contains potent antioxidants which protect against cell damage
• May increase blood flow to the skin and brain
• Chocolate milk may help you recover from exercise better than a sports drink

As you can see the list is long, and as you can also see, the word potential is key. Don't expect chocolate to fix all of your ailments, but if it isn't as bad as we thought and may even be good? Excellent!

How much chocolate is healthy?

There is not a recommended level established for flavanols, and that seems to be the compound in chocolate that provides the potential health benefits. Some of the research with the results listed above was done on as little as 30 calories of dark chocolate daily. That is about the amount of one dark chocolate Hershey Kiss.

Is dark better than milk or white chocolate?

This is the most common question I get asked regarding chocolate. White chocolate contains no cocoa solids. Since the flavanols are in the cocoa, it makes sense that the darker the chocolate, the more cocoa it contains and therefore the more flavanols. However, processing can strip the flavanols very quickly. For the antioxidant activity content of various chocolates (and other foods), click here.

When you see the percentages on chocolate labels, it is referring to the cocoa solids it contains. The higher the number, the darker the chocolate and also the less sugar it contains.

M&M Mars uses a process called Cocoapro to process their cocoa for some of their products that the company claims maintains the flavanol content. They only use Cocoapro in CocoaVia and Dove chocolate, not in all of their products.

Hershey's now is labeling the flavanol content on a few of it's products. Thank you! They also have some new milk chocolate products with higher antioxidant content for people who do not like the dark chocolate.

Isn’t chocolate fattening?

Chocolate does contain sugar and fat, which push up the calorie content. As with any food, you need to balance your intake of calories with your expenditure. Chocolate will not raise your cholesterol as previously thought, though. One of the predominant fats in chocolate is saturated fat, but much of that is stearic acid, which does not raise cholesterol levels.

Want to read more about chocolate? Check out www.allchocolate.com

Photo courtesy of jo-h

Labels: antioxidants, chocolate, Tara Gidus

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