Tag: chocolate
Quick & Healthy: Fitter, Happier, More Delicious

Quick & Healthy: Fitter, Happier, More Delicious

“Quick & Healthy” offers some highlights from the world of health and wellness you may have missed this week:

  • Power naps are not only a great away to restore your energy — they may provide an additional memory boost. In a recent German study, participants who took a 90-minute snooze were more successful at retaining recently learned information than participants who stayed up and watched a movie.
  • Researchers trying to make chocolate healthier and more delicious are showing results. By using a technique known as “pulp preconditioning,” in which cocoa pods are placed in storage for a week before processing, as well as adjusting the temperatures and timing of roasting the beans, they are finding new ways to let the finished chocolate retain more of the flavorful and nutritious antioxidants.
  • Everything old is new again. The phenomenon of “minimalist” running is yet another back-to-basics fad, in which joggers try to approximate the way our ancestors ran — namely, barefoot. Doctors are cautioning that older runners who want to take up the barefoot running craze would be advised to transition slowly to avoid injury.
  • Glysophate, the world’s most widely used weed killer and a bastion of Big Agra, is “probably carcinogenic to humans,” according to a new report from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). Monsanto has been distributing glysophate under the trade name Roundup since the 1970s, and predictably has disputed the report.

Photo: Lee McCoy via Flickr

Fitness Tip Of The Month: Nurture Yourself

Fitness Tip Of The Month: Nurture Yourself

By Leslie Barker, The Dallas Morning News (TNS)

The symbols of February’s frivolity — hearts, flowers, chocolate — are reminders of necessities as well. Where would we be without not only a beating heart to keep us alive, but without the love it represents to keep us living? Without flowers to revel in the colors and miracles of nature? Without chocolate to nurture our taste buds?

Which brings us to the Tip of the Month for February: Nurture yourself. Make sure you climb some stairs or walk briskly to increase your heart rate. Love deeply. Pick some flowers. Eat a little dark chocolate every day. (It’s good for your heart, you know.)

Before you know it, March will be here, but we’re hard-pressed to think of any reason to stop that nurturing.

Photo: premier-photo.com via Flickr

Chocolate: Beyond The Hype, A Bit Of Tasty Advice

Chocolate: Beyond The Hype, A Bit Of Tasty Advice

Among the favorite indulgences of the holiday season is chocolate in all its many forms, from peppermint-studded bark and tinsel-wrapped kisses to white chocolate coffee drinks, with a thousand varieties of bonbons, candies, cookies, and cakes besides. Who’s going to pass up a thick, creamy cup of hot chocolate when the weather turns frigid? And those treats now seem even more enticing because science suggests that cacao, the tropical bean from which chocolate is made, contains beneficial phytonutrients whose effects may enhance cardiovascular health, reduce insulin resistance, improve cognitive function, and even make weight loss easier, according to various reports.

But science also clearly warns us, with even more certainty, that many people annually gain weight between Halloween and the New Year — and that most forms of chocolate also contain sugar and lots of calories. So the question is how to enjoy this remarkable confection — whose genus name Theobroma means “food of the gods” — and its potential benefits, without damaging your health or expanding your waistline.

As with so many substances that we consume, the bane —  or the boon — is in the dose.

You don’t have to look far to find media hype about the health benefits of chocolate, especially the darkest varieties. Yet while it’s true that certain natural chemicals in cacao — namely flavanols, flavonoids, and antioxidants — offer health benefits, nobody recommends switching to an all-chocolate diet.

Researchers believe antioxidants help protect against the damage caused by normal bodily functions such as breathing, and against contaminants like cigarette smoke. Without adequate antioxidants, oxidation occurs and can result in increased LDL cholesterol – the bad kind that causes arterial plaque.

Flavonoids are found in any number of foods besides chocolate, such as fruits and vegetables. Foods high in these chemicals boost antioxidants.

Flavanols also possess antioxidant properties and may be beneficial to the cardio-vascular system by contributing to lower blood pressure, improving blood flow to the heart and brain, and decreasing the sticky characteristics of blood platelets that cause them to form clots. But keep in mind that cranberries, apples, peanuts, onions, tea, and red wine are also high in flavanols.

According to the Cleveland Clinic, it’s important to understand that not all forms of chocolate contain levels of the beneficial chemicals high enough to do you any good.  Before natural cocoa becomes the candy, drink, or flavor we love to eat, it goes through lots of processing – the more processing, the fewer beneficial chemicals. (If you’ve ever tasted natural cocoa, unsweetened, you already know that it’s very strong and bitter, and not suitable for dessert.)

“Although it was once believed that dark chocolate contained the highest levels flavanols, recent research indicates that, depending on how the dark chocolate was processed, this may not be true. The good news is that most major chocolate manufacturers are looking for ways to keep the flavanols in their processed chocolates.”

A study published in  Nature Neuroscience showed that cocoa’s flavanols may increase blood flow to the brain and thus improve some memory functions. But even if this proves to be true, it seems unlikely that cocoa alone will be used to treat Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia. Such conditions are highly complex and their negative effects probably can’t be attributed to a single cause. Instead, the hope is that studies of cacao will lead to treatments for common age-related memory loss.

So what’s the healthiest choice for your holiday chocolate fix?  Skip the chocolate cake and ice cream and opt for dark chocolate — in particular, bars with more than 60 percent cacao, which contain proportionately less sugar and fat. Delicious as milk chocolate is, it also contains much more fat and sugar than the dark varieties. You’ll find that a small bite of really high quality dark chocolate, eaten slowly and deliberately, can be very satisfying — and virtually guilt-free.

Photo: Wikipedia

Great News! Chocolate Is Good For Your Brain

Great News! Chocolate Is Good For Your Brain

If you’re always looking for an excuse for your daily or hourly chocolate fix, now you’ve got one – and it’s actually good for you.

A new study headed by neurology professor Scott Small of the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and published in the October 26 issue of Nature Neuroscience, showed that some of the natural chemicals in cocoa increase blood flow in some parts of the brain – the effect of which was an improvement in the recognition abilities in the study participants.

The chemicals, called cocoa flavanols, have been the subject of previous memory studies that have shown some correlation between them and some memory functions, but this was the first study to attempt to show cause and effect.

Whether or not studies of the effect of such chemicals can lead to treatments for Alzheimers disease or other forms of dementia is somewhat doubtful as those conditions are highly complex and the negative effects cannot be attributed to one simple cause and effect. Instead, the hope is that the studies will lead to treatment for common age-related memory loss.

But before you make a chocolate run to your local supermarket, be aware that you’ll need to consume over two-dozen chocolate bars every day to get the amount of flavanols you need. That will make you very fat and probably cause you to develop diabetes, which will create all sorts of other problems. There is currently no commercially available supplement that will provide you with the daily 900 milligrams of flavanols that might be effective, but if large-scale studies end up proving cause and effect, you can bet Big Pharma will find a way to turn a profit.

Photo: Wikipedia