It seems that the traditional south American peoples knew a thing or two about the health benefits of chocolate (or more specifically cocoa beans). Scientists visited the Kuna Indians living on islands off the Panama coast and noted that they suffered almost no hypertension(high blood pressure). Cocoa was a part of their daily diet. Its enough to make you reach for the chocolate right now. But when the islanders migrated to the mainland and began drinking the commercial cocoa blends their health deteriorated. Yes, there's a story behind this!
Cocoa in its natural form, and when used traditionally, is actually bitter in taste – and that's the therapeutic part of the bean. Modern processing strips away this bitterness and adds sugar to make it more palatable (but far less valuable for your health). To experience the difference, try some chocolate containing 85% cocoa, and notice how bitter it tastes compared to standard milk chocolate which might contain only 30% cocoa. Its important to know the difference, because if you try to use milk chocolate therapeutically, you're unlikely to improve your blood pressure, but your waistline will certainly get bigger!
Scientists keen to discover whether cocoa can help reduce blood pressure have done a multitude of research studies. Unfortunately most of the testing was on small sample sizes, which reduces the validity of their findings. (I'm still baffled as to why they would have difficulty in recruiting volunteers to test chocolate). Earlier this year a meta-analysis of the many studies done was published in the American Journal of Hypertension (you can read the entire paper here). They concluded that chocolate could indeed lower blood pressure, providing it was processed in a way that retained the original ingredients. That created chocolate rich in flavonols.
So it seems that eating chocolate is really good for you – providing you eat it as close as possible to the way it grows, and not in excessive quantities:
- choose dark chocolate with 85% cocoa. If you live in the UK or western Europe you are likely to be able to purchase flavonol-rich chocolate in the stores.
- if you find this too bitter, create a hot drink by gently melting the chocolate and stirring in hot water or milk and a little sugar.
- mind your portion size! The truly dark chocolate is just too much to eat lots of; the so-called chocolate with little cocoa, and lots of additives like sugar, should stay on the supermarket shelf.
- remember that you don't have to eat chocolate every day. There are a huge range of valuable foods available to us that can also help lower your blood pressure (hint: they're high in fibre and minerals, like legumes, fruit and oats)
How do you like to eat your chocolate? Care to share your special recipe with us?
Comments
Post has no comments.