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Unwrapping a bar of your favourite chocolate can fill you with both a sense of excitement and a niggling worry. The delight of chocolate’s sweet, aromatic taste and smooth texture is usually offset by the knowledge of that each bite is bound to lodge itself somewhere on your hips. But now you may have reason to relax your concerns a little and allow yourself to enjoy the experience completely. Because research shows that eating chocolate can be good for your heart.

Flavonoids

Chocolate has a number of different ingredients – some of them good, some of them bad. Sugar and fat are known to be unhealthy when eaten in large amounts and these are the two main ingredients found in chocolate. But cocoa is rich in flavonoids, which can help to improve the health of your heart.

Health factors

When it comes to measuring the benefits of your particular chocolate eating habits there are two deciding factors:

What kind of chocolate are you eating?

How much chocolate are you eating?

Cocoa content

Most inexpensive milk chocolates have a fairly low cocoa content – roughly 25 per cent – whereas good quality dark chocolate can contain up to 80 per cent cocoa. Many people do not like chocolate with a high cocoa content because it tastes bitter compared to the low cocoa milk chocolate variety.

Quality vs. quantity

Eating chocolate every day is not recommended, since this increases your exposure the more harmful ingredients in chocolate. But eating a small amount of good quality dark chocolate twice a week can be very beneficial.

However, if you do not particularly enjoy chocolate you do not have to force yourself to eat it. Fruit and vegetables contain adequate amounts of flavanoids, and are just as good for your heart, if not better.

Tags: chocolate, dark chocolate