Posted on 03/30/2010 1:49:20 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Eating as little as a quarter of an ounce of chocolate each day -- an amount equal to about one small Easter egg -- may lower your risk of experiencing a heart attack or stroke, a new study has found. For best results, the chocolate should be dark, experts say.
"Dark chocolate exhibits the greatest effects, milk chocolate fewer, and white chocolate no effects," says the lead author of the study, Brian Buijsse, a nutritional epidemiologist at the German Institute of Human Nutrition, in Nuthetal, Germany.
In the study, Buijsse and his colleagues followed nearly 20,000 people for an average of eight years. The researchers surveyed the study participants about their chocolate consumption (as well as the rest of their diet), and also tracked the heart attacks and strokes that occurred in the group.
Compared with people who rarely ate chocolate (about one bar per month), the people who ate the most chocolate (slightly more than one bar per week) had a 27 percent and 48 percent reduced risk of heart attack and stroke, respectively, the researchers found.
Health.com: How to make chocolate a healthy indulgence The heart benefits observed in the study may be due in part to lower blood pressure, the study notes. Previous studies have suggested that eating chocolate can lower blood pressure, and the researchers observed a similar -- though less pronounced -- association in this study.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Cocoa is high in antioxidants, the darker the better. This is also true of coffee. Cocoa beans and coffee beans have several similarities. Both are good for you!
The 86% is BARELY sweet, just enough to take the edge off the bitterness. One square is all I can handle at a time, although the "serving size" is 4 squares. (Woosh! Anybody who can eat four square of 86% has MY undying admiration!) I usually break a refrigerated square into 16 very small pieces, and eat them one at a time over a period of an evening. If you want chocolate, this is the ONLY way to go...
You’re on your way to Samadhi.
[if you can slip by Lakini, unnoticed]
I love that stuff!
Okay, who will be first to market chocolate-covered aspirin?
You mean you still use the regular kind?
"Nobody eats the parsley."
I have a square of 100% cacao Ghirardelli’s every once in a while because I avoid as much sugar as possible. Hmmm... Wouldn’t at all mind having it more often.
“Yer preachin’ to th choir.....”
When we preach to the choir the congregation hears too :)
It’s for your health.
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