Thursday 14 May 2009

The brains say dark chocolate is healthier

Advantages: Antioxidants

Disadvantages: Fat content

Good news everyone - dark chocolate is better for you than milk chocolate! This good news comes from Glasgow and Italy where researchers have been studying chocolate and its benefits on health. Researchers from the University of Glasgow and Italy's National Institute for Food and Nutrition Research carried out the tests using both dark chocolate and milk chocolate. 12 healthy volunteers, were asked to eat dark and milk chocolate. It was found that the volunteers had to consume twice as much milk chocolate as dark chocolate to obtain the same amount of antioxidants. To take account of this, participants were offered a double helping of milk chocolate. The volunteers were also asked to eat dark chocolate and drink milk at the same time. The findings were that dark chocolate boosts blood antioxidant levels by nearly 20%, but not when volunteers ate milk chocolate or drank milk with dark chocolate. The scientists think that proteins in the milk probably bind with the antioxidants in chocolate with the consequence that they are not being absorbed to the extent they would be if plain dark chocolate was eaten instead. Great news for our health then, but the researchers do warn against against over-indulging in chocolate because after all it does contain fats, so keep it down to a bar of dark chocolate a day. Happy munching

Summary: Eat in moderation

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