Healthy Bytes

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I’ve been seeing more studies about chocolate lately. What’s the deal?

Well, it’s a mixed bag really.

Chocolate has a “magic” compound called “flavonoids”. Flavonoids are powerful antioxidants. The most noted benefits conferred have been:
– improves heart health by increasing blood flow and reducing platelet stickiness and clotting
– improves bad cholesterol (HDL)
– prevents cell damage and inflammation
– lowers blood pressure
– increases blood flow to the brain which may boost your memory, attention span, reaction time and problem solving

That’s the good stuff.
But the thing about chocolate is it’s generally accompanied by some not good stuff such as sugar and milk.
For instance a dark chocolate bar has more than 4 times the flavonoids than a milk chocolate bar. (And dark chocolate bar has less sugar and no milk).

Chocolate isn’t the only flavonoid wielding food. In fact, it was a few years back when there was everything good to say about tea. Why… flavonoids.

What other foods are high in flavonoids… almonds, apples, beets, blueberries, broccoli, grapes, onions, oranges, pears and red wine.

Related posts:

• Chocolate – a divergent fork
• Nap time – not just child’s play
• Red wine… your daily vitamin?

This entry was posted on Friday, December 22nd, 2006 at 4:13 pm and is filed under Eating, Nutrition. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.