Ways chocolate is good for your mind and body, especially if it’s dark and has nuts, and why you shouldn’t eliminate it from your diet
- Chocolate is a feel-good food, perhaps because of what’s in it but most probably because it brings back memories of good times growing up, a doctor says
- It’s good for you because it has vitamins and minerals, and compounds that help keep blood vessels elastic. What’s more, you can’t give it up even if you try
Chocolate isn’t really filling, but it tastes good and studies suggest it can make you feel good, too. You often cannot stop after eating a single piece, so you polish off the entire bar, if not more, leaving only a guilty conscience. So is eating chocolate unhealthy?
“It depends on the type,” says Dr Johannes Georg Wechsler, president of the Federal Association of German Nutritional Physicians.
Dark chocolate with a cocoa content of at least 70 per cent can have positive effects on the body, he says, due in part to the flavanols in cocoa, chocolate’s main ingredient.
A group of bioactive compounds found in certain plant-based foods, flavanols help to keep blood vessels elastic and have also been shown to lower high blood pressure slightly.
Dark chocolate has a higher proportion of flavanols than light chocolate does since its cocoa content is higher. And light chocolate contains more sugar and fat than dark chocolate does, Wechsler notes.
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Another factor in favour of snacking on chocolate, dark or light, is that it contains vitamins as well as minerals such as iron, calcium and magnesium.
The nutrients in a chocolate bar are listed on the back of the package, and Wechsler says “it’s worth checking them out while you’re shopping, and comparing different types of chocolate with each other”.
But no matter which type you choose, eating chocolate has a positive psychological effect. “Chocolate elevates your mood – it’s a real feel-good food,” remarks nutritionist Ingrid Acker.
The same goes for theobromine, a bitter alkaloid of the cacao plant that is said to have a similar effect.
Acker thinks the effect is more likely due to the association of chocolate with positive memories. “You eat it and think more or less consciously of good old times, such as a pleasant event in your childhood,” she says.
Chocolate can definitely be psychologically beneficial in this way, and, according to Wechsler, even have antidepressant effects.
While some people have a bit of chocolate every day, others categorically reject it because of the relatively high sugar and fat content in certain types. Acker, for her part, takes a dim view of totally banning chocolate from your diet.
“Strictly speaking, there’s no food that deserves to be called ‘unhealthy,’” says Acker, arguing that it’s “unnatural” to brand sugar and fat as evil, and consequently to declare chocolate taboo. In the right combination with other foods, chocolate is an acceptable part of a balanced diet, she says.
Wechsler is also against self-prohibitions when it comes to food.
“In the final analysis, what matters is maintaining the right overall daily energy balance, which varies from person to person,” he emphasises. So it’s definitely permissible to eat chocolate – in moderation and, especially, with pleasure.”
