Posted on 12/11/2007 3:17:47 PM PST by blam
Chocolate Is The Most Widely Craved Food, But Is It Really Addictive?
ScienceDaily (Sep. 12, 2007) — Chocolate is the most widely and frequently craved food. People readily admit to being 'addicted to chocolate' or willingly label themselves as 'chocoholics'. A popular explanation for this is that chocolate contains mood-enhancing (psychoactive) ingredients that give it special appeal.
Polyphenol antioxidant Evidence and logic, however, find little support for this. Substances present in chocolate which have been highlighted as potentially pharmacologically significant include serotonin, tryptophan, phenylethylamine, tyramine and cannabinoids. However, many of these compounds exist in higher concentrations in other foods with less appeal than chocolate.
Professor Peter Rogers, from the University of Bristol, UK, explains: "A more compelling explanation lies in our ambivalent attitudes towards chocolate -- it is highly desired but should be eaten with restraint (nice but naughty). Our unfulfilled desire to eat chocolate, resulting from restraint, is thus experienced as craving, which in turn is attributed to 'addiction'."
A further observation is that the most widely preferred chocolate is milk chocolate and chocolate-covered confectionery. These contain a lower amount of cocoa solids, and therefore a lower concentration of potentially psychoactive compounds, than 'dark' chocolate which is not so widely craved.
It is therefore far more plausible to suggest that a liking for chocolate, and its effects on mood, are due mainly to its principal constituents, sugar and fat, and their related orosensory and nutritional effects.
The evidence as to whether chocolate can really become addictive is examined by Professor Peter Rogers from the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Bristol, Uk.
Adapted from materials provided by University of Bristol.
Chocolate tastes good. Why do we have to analyze stuff to death? Oh yeh...Grant Money!!
Bittersweet chocolate chips and a hot cup of coffee.
Take a sip of hot black coffee. Then pop a few chips in your mouth and let them melt from the heat of the coffee. Then take another sip of coffee and repeat.
It’s amazing.
From the “List Of Advantages Of Being A Guy” - “Chocolate is just another food.”
It’s a vegetable, it’s good for you. That’s all that matters. Now hand it over.
Course tasting really good wouldn’t have anything to do with it.
Nothing like a little taste of home in a far off land to make Christmas, Christmas... even in Iraq ;-)
What's the world's best chocolate?
Hey, good for you Trajan88.
I’ve been eating chocolate every day for years, and never got addicted.
You can drink it
You can crave it
You can drive it
You can drive it? WTF?!?
Fine studies. Fine, I say.
Pass the Reese’s cups, please.
Not addictive HA! I quit smoking but still can’t stop the chocolate.
I like Godiva chocolate covered candied orange and grapefruit peels.
Sorry. Honest!
Eating chocolate isn’t addictive. Licking it off my wife is.
It’s not addictive. I haven’t had any since an hour ago.
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