Many people believe chocolate isn’t healthy, so it must be bad for you. Primarily categorized as junk food, just as cookies or potato chips are. Forget eating chocolate if you’re trying to lose weight. If you have a sweet tooth, find something else to satisfy your craving. People with tell you to pleasure your taste buds with anything else that won’t make you feel guilty.
Some advertisements are now suggesting that dark chocolate is actually good for you. Chocolate has a lot of the same healthy nutrients as fruits and vegetables. It comes from plants, so why wouldn’t it be beneficial to our health?
What’s the truth, who should you, believe? Do reasonable amounts of chocolate provide any positive benefits to athletes or active people? Is chocolate just a tasty concoction of sugars, saturated fats, with an abundance of calories?
It’s up to you to determine if the health benefits outweigh the costs to your health. Diets like the one offered by Sane Solution encourage people to eat the foods they love, but in moderation. You determine whether it’s a beneficial health food that fits into your diet. Here’s a bit of information to help you make that choice.
The Downside:
Chocolate is mainly sugar and saturated fat? There are 210 calories in a 43-gram bar of chocolate, 13g total fat which is 55% of the calorie count. One bar contains 24g of sugar and accounts for 46% of calories. The 8g of saturated fats are equal to one tablespoon of butter.
It’s sad, but you can still rationalize making this tasty treat a part of any balanced diet. The fat found in chocolate doesn’t raise your cholesterol level and the crabs (sugars) actually help your muscles.
Many people who binge on chocolate have a viable reason, during the holidays, or women who are pre-menstrual, to name a few. Some simply refuse to fuel their passion for chocolate.
It makes you wonder; would eating a bit of chocolate daily prevent an active person’s need to consume an entire pack of bites when they’re feeling down? This is a great concept to research.
We already know denying certain foods fuel the need to overeat. Most of us have said, “I’m going to start my diet tomorrow, so I’m going eat all the chocolate I can today.” Next thing you know, that bag of delicious chocolate is gone!
It’s believed that enjoying just a few bites each day will keep the ‘Chocolate Monster’ away. Those few daily bites can give you a new perspective on why you want chocolate. You can start to believe it’s just a food derived from plants, like the fruits and vegetables you eat every day. See if that doesn’t work for you.
The Chocolate Addiction:
Some claim to be ‘chocolate addicts’. It’s possible you feel this way from being raised in a home that didn’t permit this decadent treat. Being an adult, you decided you can eat what you want. Feel like eating a bag of chocolates, no one’s around to stop you. Maybe you just can’t resist the flavor of chocolate, or you have a gene making you crave dark or milk chocolate. Scientists continue genetic testing, maybe they’ll discover the reason you crave chocolate.
The Best of Chocolate:
Chocolate is derived from the cocoa bean. Just like fruits, cocoa is a wonderful source of healthy protective-photochemical, the same type found in whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. Two tablespoons of cocoa powder, used in baking, provides the same amount of antioxidants as a ¾ cup of blueberries or a glass of red wine.
Of the many varieties of chocolate, dark has the healthiest source of phytonutrients but has a bitter taste, the reason many prefer the mild, sweeter flavor of milk chocolate.
Nitrate is one of the photochemical found in cocoa. Nitrates are converted into nitric oxide which helps to lower blood pressure. This definitely benefits anyone wishing to improve their health.
Cocoa helps increase blood flow to your brain, making it easier and faster to process information. It was believed eating chocolate made you hyper but events actually cause it.
Active people love chocolate and don’t want the sugarless or fat-free chocolates. They want the benefits real delicious chocolate provides.
Despite all the good in chocolate, it isn’t a food to depend on, it’s just candy. It’s a guilt-free pleasure to be enjoyed and tastes better than manufactured foods. Chocolate fuels your body and your mind.
