5 Chocolate Facts You Didn’t Know

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Just because you eat a lot of chocolate doesn’t make you an absolute expert on it. Here are some chocolate facts, which you ought to know before you consider yourself a true aficionado of everything that’s chocolate:

Chocolate Fact #1. Chocolate and Its Variants Dominate Surveys About Favorite Ice Cream Flavors.

You may have suspected that chocolate is the number one favorite when it comes to ice cream flavors, but numerous surveys have confirmed it regularly through the years. But in most top 10 lists of ice cream flavors, the other choco variants mentioned include Cookie Dough, Rocky Road, Chocolate Fudge Brownie, and Chocolate Peanut Butter. (The non-chocolate favorites are vanilla, cookies n’ cream, strawberry, pistachio, and mint—just in case you were wondering.)

Chocolate Fact #2. The Most Expensive Chocolate Is Worth More Than A Million Dollars.

In fact, if you have a million dollars to spend on this delicious creation, you need another half-a-million more to buy the Le Chocolate Collection. The chocolate comes from Lake Forest Confections, but the main reason for this rather inflated $1.5 million price tag is the addition of Simon Jewelers rings, earrings, and bracelets, which are studded with sapphires, emeralds, and diamonds.

There are other expensive chocolates out there with jewelry, or with some truffles added to boost the price. But if you think adding jewelry and truffles is cheating, then you can just buy yourself a Wispa Gold Wrapped Chocolate Bar, which is the world’s most expensive chocolate bar at $1628. The gold isn’t really cheating, because the gold wrapper is edible.

Chocolate Fact #3. Chocolates Are Poisonous to Your Pet Dog.

Just because you’re the heir to a multi-billion dollar fortune doesn’t mean you can feed your dog a million-dollar chocolate treat. That’ll just kill your pooch, and not because it’s not really safe to swallow a diamond-studded bracelet. Chocolate contains theobromine which, although is beneficial to the human cardiovascular system, is toxic for dogs. Two ounces of milk chocolate (which contains less cocoa liquor than dark chocolate) is enough to kill a 10-pound puppy. Now if you already know all this, you may not know that chocolate is also poisonous to parrots.

Chocolate Fact #4. Chocolates Do Not Cause Pimples.

Although the belief that chocolates cause pimples is a very popular myth, it’s actually not true. Just because teenagers were eating chocolate and getting pimples the next day doesn’t mean chocolate is the culprit—the fact that they’re teenagers may be the real reason. Just in case you’re not sure, this myth has been debunked by studies in University of Pennsylvania, as well as in the US Naval Academy at Annapolis. If you read an article which blames chocolate for acne, it’s time to click out, as the author may not be an actual expert on the subject.

Chocolate Fact #5. Next To The Swiss, The British Eat The Most Chocolate.

The Brits love their chocolate, even more so than their American cousins who consume about 11 pounds of chocolate a year per person. The average British subject eats a whopping 19 pounds a year, which tops almost everyone. As expected, the Swiss is #1 at 22 pounds a year.

Can Chocolate be Part of a Healthy Diet?

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Many people who have to go on a diet often assume that they say goodbye to chocolate. After all, just one bar of chocolate contains 220 calories, and that’s not exactly a trivial amount. Besides, chocolate tastes so good that some people immediately conclude that it’s bad for them. And when you think about it, most diet programs call for almost tasteless foods, and tasteless isn’t really something you can use to describe chocolate.

The Health Benefits of Chocolate

The truth of the matter is that chocolate can actually be healthy for you. It has antioxidants which fight aging and also helps prevent some types of cancer and heart disease. It also provides important nutrients that people need, like copper, iron, magnesium, and zinc. In addition, it gives your body protein and healthy saturated fats, vitamin E, calcium and phosphorus (which along with magnesium keep your teeth and bones strong).

Chocolate for Breakfast

Experts who recommend chocolate as part of a healthy diet contend that most people fail at their diets in the long term, because people don’t like it when they can no longer even taste their favorite foods. By having a reasonable amount of chocolate every day, people do not have to be tempted to quit their diet program. Consuming chocolate regularly prevents binge-eating by alleviating cravings, which often gives back the pounds these dieters have shed in the short time they have been on the diet. Trying to totally abstain from chocolate (or other forms of sweets) can eventually lead to a psychological addiction later on.

The best time to eat chocolate, according to many experts, is at breakfast. Breakfast is the meal that gives the body the energy it needs for the tasks that lie ahead. It jump-starts the brain’s function and activates the body’s metabolism. All these reasons make breakfast important in terms of weight loss and keeping off the unwanted pounds.

Try to have a small slice of chocolate cake in the morning, or perhaps a couple of chocolate cookies. This is the time when the body’s metabolism is the most active, which means you can burn off the calories more effectively. You also have the rest of the day to burn off the calories. In addition, chocolate cake or cookies as part of a breakfast meal that has protein and carbohydrates can help you resist the cravings for sweets later in the day.

Additional Tips

If you wish to add chocolate to your health diet, here are some things you should keep in mind:

Choose the best, the purest, and the darkest chocolate. Avoid those with too much additional sugar, as sugar doesn’t really help you maintain your weight. The best ones are not only pure and sugar-free, but they may also contain exotic spices that add to the taste and the experience.
Make sure you eat chocolate in moderation. Too much of anything isn’t really good, and this applies to chocolate as well.
You still need to conform to the rest of your dietary guidelines and in addition you also need to have an effective exercise regimen.

As long as you don’t go overboard, there is absolutely no reason for you to give up chocolate in your quest to live a healthier life.

What is White Chocolate?

White Chocolate vs Dark Chocolate

Many purists don’t realty consider white chocolate as real chocolate. In any case, if you’re not a purist you’re still no longer availing of the various health benefits of the cocoa solids. It’s common knowledge that the darker the chocolate, the healthier it is—and white chocolate is the furthest thing from “dark” chocolate. It has none of the cocoa solids that provide the most health benefits.

According to the American Heart Association, here are some of the benefits of dark chocolate you may be missing on:

Dark chocolate contains antioxidants that can lower blood pressure and relax the blood vessels. This reduces the risk of some health conditions like hypertension, arteriosclerosis, and heart attacks.
It fights certain types of cancer.
Women who eat more than 45 grams of chocolate a week are 20% less likely to have a stroke.
Real chocolate clears the mouth faster, which gives less time for bacteria to feed on food and cause cavities. Chocolate also helps prevent plaque from forming.
Regular consumers of dark chocolate also tend to have a lower tendency to become obese.

Benefits of White Chocolate

There are, however, some benefits of consuming white chocolate. For one, white chocolate still contains a healthy amount of calcium and phosphorus, which helps keep the bones and the teeth strong. In addition, white chocolate has no caffeine at all, which is a welcome relief for insomniacs or for those who are especially sensitive to even the smallest amounts of caffeine. A single bar of regular chocolate contains the same amount of caffeine as a cup of decaf coffee, so if your doctor forbids you to drink even decaf coffee, then white chocolate is your only alternative. Besides, if you like your chocolate really sweet, then you would probably choose white chocolate anyway.

Are You Feeding Your Kids Too Much Chocolate?

Healthy Amounts of Chocolate

Chocolate in itself is not bad for the health. In fact, it has certain nutritional value and it can be good for the body, generally speaking. And although it isn’t essential, it is one of those supplementary foods that are often recommended by dietary experts. You need to take care that your children only eat and drink chocolate in moderate amounts, because too much chocolate (as in most things, actually) may be bad for them.

If your kids will be consuming chocolate then you may as well get them the purer and darker kind, which is the healthier variety. Some experts peg the safety or healthy level of chocolate consumption at 35 grams per day. Go over that level, and you’re feeding your children too much chocolate.

Consequences of Eating Too Much Chocolate

It’s practically impossible to eat a fatal amount of chocolate. You might die if you eat 22 pounds of chocolate in one sitting regularly, but that amount of chocolate is twice the amount that the average American consumes in an entire year. Still, there are dangers associated with consuming too much chocolate.

Sugary chocolate can cause dental cavities. Although the chocolate itself isn’t bad for the teeth, the sugar it is often laced with isn’t good for the teeth. You can have your kids brush their teeth right after eating their candies, but there is also a limit to brushing before it becomes bad for the teeth as well. Children should only brush their teeth two or three times a day, because going beyond that can erode the natural protection of the teeth. So with too much chocolate, it’s a no-win situation for your children’s teeth.
How many cups of decaf coffee would you allow your kids to drink? Remember that number, because one chocolate bar is the caffeine equivalent of a cup of decaf.
Chocolate may also cause your kids to lose their appetite, so this means you need to limit their intake so they can eat their meat and vegetables during mealtime.
The dark chocolate, which is healthier for the kids, are often the most expensive varieties. You may be feeding your kids too much chocolate if you can no longer afford to buy them regularly.

How to Limit Your Child’s Chocolate Intake

It’s not really a very good idea to point out the various risks of consuming too much chocolate for children, because frankly they won’t understand and they won’t care. As a parent, you simply have to withhold the chocolate. When they ask why, just tell them it’s not good to eat too much of it—end of story.

This means that you, yourself, need to take care about how your children get chocolate. Don’t stock on chocolate so that your children won’t be tempted to eat it anytime they wish. You can also offer chocolate as an incentive for good work or behavior if you want. But for normal times, when your kids are having a craving for sweets, you can offer them healthier alternatives such as bananas, fruit salad, or fruit custard and jelly.

Finally, you must always require your children to brush their teeth after eating chocolate or any kind of sweet treat for that matter. This isn’t just so their teeth will be protected, but also to discourage them from over-indulging. Brushing their teeth can be a chore for young children, and if eating chocolate is associated with this task, then they may on their own limit their chocolate consumption.