Chocolate and Health
Who cares? We care because we love chocolate. We also love health.
We at Chocolate Therapy Ltd consider that we don't have to justify to anyone or make excuses for and about chocolate and nor should you, just enjoy.
We are about the knowledge of chocolate, CHOCOLOGY and what it does to us on a level of;
Physio-Philosophy... Awareness of MYSELF
Physio-Psychology... Comprehension of MYSELF
Physio-Physiology... Method for MYSELF
If you absolutely do need excuses to vindicate your chocolate behaviour, then some of the information below could help.
We at Chocolate Therapy believe in health with chocolate in our lives. Chocolate is part of life, a big and celebrated part of life. To deny this is to miss out on one of the pleasures of being alive. Why do we love chocolate so much? Chocolate contains Phenylethylamine (PEA) which is a chemical found in the brain. If, for example you fall in love or win some money, your PEA rises. If your life takes a down turn or you fall out of love, your PEA lowers, you don't feel as good. Most foods contain PEA but beautiful, luscious, sensuous chocolate is just loaded with it. We raise our PEA levels when we are feeling low by eating chocolate. Unfortunately this high doesn't last long, so we may want another blast of PEA raising and perhaps another.
In surveys it has been shown that women need chocolate more than men (*1). This may be true, but from chocology or Chocolate Therapy experience it is perhaps that women aren't afraid to own it. Men sometimes seem a little coy in saying they love chocolate. In the Chocolate Therapy practice we do have a slightly higher percentage of females, but we are sure this has nothing to do with chocolate but therapy in general.
"Chocolate is history" proffers Louis E Grivetti, professor in the department of nutrition at UC Davis. According to Grivetti throughout the centuries chocolate has been hailed to...
(*2)
Improve anaemia
Awaken the appetite
Strengthen the brain
Increase breast milk production
Alleviate tuberculosis and gout
Cure kidney stones
Improve longevity
Enhance digestion
Invigorate kidney function
Improve elimination
Increase sexual appetite and virility
Stimulate nervous system of feeble patients
Calm, sooth and sedate over- stimulated patients
Grivetti also says that early physicians prescribed drinking or eating chocolate "to add or restore flesh or weight gain to emaciated patients"
What researchers are saying about chocolate in the 21st century;
Chocolate is a health food
More antioxidents in chocolate than in fruit and vegetables
Contains compounds that promote heart health
Flavonoid-rich, similar to green tea, red wine, olive oil
Fat in chocolate contains stearic acid, oleic acid which decrease platelet activity
Chocolate lowers cholesterol
What is known
Chocolate is nutritious and this makes chocolate a must for ration packs in the army, for trampers/hikers, mountain climbers. Chocolate contains protein, fat, carbohydrate, calcium, magnesium, iron, zinc, carotene (vitamin A), vitamin B1, B2, B3, B6, B12, and Folate. Milk chocolate contains a higher percentage of these than dark chocolate (sorry all you purists out there) but it does depend on the levels of cacao solids and/or the brand of chocolate analysed. So you can see why it's an energy food and taken in moderation (is there such a thing with chocolate), it can only enhance our lives.
Chocolate could be called natures' Prozac. When we have a craving for chocolate, it could well be for the brain pleasing qualities that chocolate contains, i.e. sugars, fats, PEA, theobromine, magnesium. There could be more brain pleasing ingredients that are yet to be discovered. If taken in moderation it is the most natural anti-depressant that I know of.
What Chocolate Therapy is saying...
Many latest findings on Chocolate claim that it is full of antioxidents, flavonoids, stearic acid to name but a few, the list goes on. It is fantastic now that there is so much research undertaken. But who is undertaking and underwriting this research? Most is funded by chocolate companies. So when we read or hear statements about chocolate and health that contain the words MAY, COULD, MIGHT, THERE IS A POSSIBILITY THAT... they mean nothing. They are only ideas that have not been proven. When we read statements that seem positive about their health benefits, they are mostly from "test tube" research in a laboratory, etc., not testing on humans. Without being too cynical, research is funded with an interest in making money somewhere along the line The findings perhaps are biased or compromised to some degree. What we would like to see are the results and proof of any of the nutrients getting into the body at a cellular level. This human cellular level is where change takes place, not on a slide or in a test tube in a laboratory. This holds for all foods, not just chocolate. Just because a food contains nutrients that some say are good for us doesn't mean that we will absorb these so called nutrients. [A nutrient is...any substance that provides essential nourishment for the maintenance of life...The Concise Oxford Dictionary, Ninth edition.]
Chocolate may or may not contain all that is claimed. Again, depending on the quality and the brand of chocolate, the higher the percentage of cacao butter in the chocolate, the better. Many small chocolate makers and some large chocolate manufacturers do not have access to or prefer to avoid the cost of high-grade chocolate made with a high content of cacao butter. Cacao butter is expensive and is substituted with cheap fat. You know that you can taste this inferior content...why support it...they charge much the same as those who are committed to presenting chocolate with full integrity.
Regarding the fat issue, Carl Keen, Professor and Chair of the Department of Nutrition at UC Davis has said, "look at the total fat intake that occurs in one day, and then start making decisions as to which foods with fat you are going to eat, based on what else the food brings with it." (*2) This I think is a good balanced approach. Chocolate is only one of the foods we choose to eat and like all things, we need a balance of all food groups. Unfortunately we can’t live on chocolate alone! It is a cross some of us will just have to bear.
A Gallup survey of 1,000 American adults found chocolate was ranked as their favourite flavour by a three to one margin (*3) The average American consumes 11.7 lbs. of chocolate per year (the equivalent of about one half-ounce of chocolate each day). Though if asked, many of those people would admit to feeling somewhat guilty about this behaviour (*4).
A major part of Chocolate Therapy work in its therapeutic role, is to support people/clients in releasing this guilt. Why? Because most of the chocolate beliefs that we have today are based on popular folklore, not on facts. There are so many good aspects to chocolate and these tend to be overlooked.
It is our belief that the only "problem" with chocolate [apart from cheap fat-saturated chocolate] is related to the negative thoughts held while eating it (*5). These thoughts are transformed into physical symptoms and these only strengthen our negative beliefs and feed our subconscious with more negative imaginings. We are creating our future based on false evidence.
No wonder we can't get our health sorted out, whether it is emotional, physical or mental (let alone the spiritual). As in all things, moderation is the key, and in saying that, what is right for one person could be wrong for another. It is therefore important to find your own inner centre, and from that will come your own sense of balance.
The cholesterol factor is one that many people refer to, as a side issue. We have included the below as it gives food for thought.
There was a study published by Ohio State University Scientists (*6). They were looking at the metabolism of cholesterol in rabbits. The rabbits were fed diets that were extremely high in toxic cholesterol. There was one group of rabbits that didn't get the high cholesterol levels nor the hardening of the arteries, despite being fed the exactly the same diet. After a lot of investigation they discovered the only difference between these rabbits and the ones getting the high cholesterol levels came from the technician who was feeding them. Instead of just throwing the food to them he would take them out of their cages and cuddle them, kiss them and sing to them and still feed them the same poisonous food.
Now as a result of that experience of love, they generated a completely different set of neuro-peptides that transformed the cholesterol into a totally different metabolic pathway making once again the crucial difference between life and death from the number one killer in our civilisation.
All this just backs up our thoughts on eating and how we eat. So let us now turn guilt into pleasure. Start to live for each moment and enjoy all our differences and who we really are will start to show itself.