Submitted by support on Sun, 04/22/2012 - 02:24
This was reprinted from: The Global Partners Group
Chocolate is a Powerful Health Food - Study from Cornell University
But Heed This Warning - A bit of good news if you received a gift of chocolate this Valentine's Day: For once, something that tastes good is good for you. Chocolate "teems with antioxidants that prevent cancer," according to a Cornell University study published in 2003. And the results of an animal study -- just published in December, 2011- show that eating cocoa, the raw material in chocolate, can help prevent cancerous lesions in the colon. Does this give us a license to load up on candy bars, brownies, hot chocolate and (my favorite) Black Forest cake? Let's find out. . .
The Cornell study was entitled "Cocoa has More Phenolic Phytochemicals and a Higher Antioxidant Capacity than Teas and Red Wine." That's a quite a discovery!
"If I had made a prediction before conducting the tests, I would have picked green tea as having the most antioxidant activity," said one of the researchers, Chang Y. Lee. "When we compared one serving of each beverage, the cocoa turned out to be the highest in antioxidant activity, and that was surprising to me."
He added that as recently as 1993, food scientists did not know that phenolics had an important role in human health. Phenolics or polyphenols are substances found in many plants that are good for your health. They tend to be associated with aromas and flavors - and rich in antioxidant power. The tannins in red wine, for example, are phenolics.
The Cornell comparison of cocoa to green tea and red wine produced startling results. Cocoa turned out to be about twice as rich in beneficial substances as red wine and three times as rich as green tea.
Professor Joe Vinton of the University of Scranton says the darker the chocolate is, the better it is for you. Ounce for ounce, milk chocolate has twice as many antioxidants as blueberries, but dark chocolate has five times as many. But the antioxidant power of cocoa powder is even higher - twice that of dark chocolate.
Eat it off the tree, or as close to that as you can get
The industrial processes that turn cocoa into chocolate reduce its antioxidant properties. The less processed the chocolate, the better it is for your health.
Cocoa is harvested from a plant called "cacao," derived from an Aztec word. This is an evergreen tropical American tree that bears a leathery fruit on the trunk and older branches.
Cocoa powder - the pure stuff - is made from cacao seeds that have been fermented, roasted, shelled, ground, and freed of most of their fat. Most of the polyphenols do survive being heated. Besides antioxidants, cocoa contains a wealth of other substances that can do you good, including 400 different compounds that promote a better mood and relieve anxiety. Most chocolate fans don't need to be told the stuff gives you a lift. And now the scientific proof is in. Who needs Paxil and Prozac?
Chocolate and cancer prevention. A new study from Spain's Institute of Food Science and Technology (ICTAN) supports the idea that eating cocoa powder can help prevent cancer - or at least colon cancer.2
In the study, rats were fed a diet consisting of 12 percent cocoa while a control group was not fed cocoa. The animals were then given a chemical known to cause cancer lesions in the colon wall. The rats fed a cocoa-rich diet developed fewer lesions than the control group.The researchers also found an improvement in the antioxidant defenses of the cocoa-fed animals and a decrease in indications of oxidative damage (damage caused by free radicals).
The researchers believe that cocoa helps protect from cancer by interrupting cell-signaling pathways involved in cancer cell proliferation, and also by inducing apoptosis (programmed cell death). Apparently the cancer-fighting substances in cocoa are not absorbed well in the small intestine. That's enables them to find their way into the large intestine - the colon - with their antioxidant powers intact.
Chocolate yes, sugar no
Although there's strong support for the antioxidant value of unprocessed cocoa powder, most of the health benefits are negated by making it into chocolate -- mixing it with gobs of sugar and saturated fat. It's a wash, at best.
There are some chocolate companies that sell dark chocolate candy that supposedly contains a full, rich dose of antioxidants. Check the labels for sugar content.
When I was a child, my older sister and I had hot chocolate every morning for breakfast. (Those were the days). My sister made hers with unsweetened Hershey's cocoa powder, while I made mine with sugar-loaded Nestle's Quik. My sister had the right idea, although she added her own sugar and probably ended up with a drink as sweet as mine.
If you can restrain your shaking, addicted hand from reaching for the sugar jar, a drink made from unsweetened cocoa powder can give you a wealth of health benefits. In fact, it's fair to call it a "super food."
If you've eaten mole poblano - chicken with chocolate sauce -- at a Mexican restaurant, you've encountered unsweetened chocolate - and, yes, it does taste good.
Footnotes article:
1"Cocoa Has More Phenolic Phytochemicals and a Higher Antioxidant Capacity than Tea and Red Wine". Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, Vol. 51, Issue 25: 7292-7295, Dec. 3, 2003
2"Cocoa-rich diet prevents azoxymethane-induced colonic preneoplastic lesions in rats by restraining oxidative stress and cell proliferation and inducing apoptosis". Molecular Nutrition & Food Research, 55: 1895-1899, Dec. 2011