Is chocolate healthy or unhealthy?

Question

Abby Langer, RD · Answer

So the question is, is chocolate healthy or unhealthy? As a dietician, I think that a healthy diet is not only what you eat but your attitude towards food and eating. And if we cut out chocolate or perceive it as unhealthy, it can lead to guilt and shame around eating it. A healthy diet has a variety of foods, including chocolate. Does that mean that you should be eating chocolate at every meal? Absolutely not. But you shouldn't really be eating anything at every meal. In short, yeah, I mean, chocolate-- it's not the most healthful food. But it's still emotionally nourishing, and it's delicious. So don't cut it out. Dark chocolate also has a lot of polyphenols in it, which are antioxidants, which may have health benefits, although those health benefits may be canceled out by the fat and the sugar in the chocolate. And also, you might not like dark chocolate. You might prefer milk, which is totally fine. There are no real unhealthy foods. There are foods that you want to eat less of, or you want to eat them less often. And chocolate may be one of them. But definitely don't cut it out.

Meg Gerber, RD, LD, IFNCP, CGN · Answer

I love this question as a huge chocolate lover, but I kind of got through this question similar to how I would answer like a coffee or a beverage when you're out. What really matters is what's what else is in it? So if you're picking up a chocolate bar or chocolate chips, and it's just cacao and small amounts of a sweetener, especially a sweetener that's lower glycemic, like a coconut sugar or something, from a more kind of a more natural source like organic. Like honey, local honey or organic maple or date. Those would be better options to look for in a chocolate. So I really like the brand huge chocolate, and I like the brand eating a bald as well, because they make really high potency cacao percentages. So, I generally get the rule of thumb of look for 85 percent or higher dark chocolate. White chocolate isn't chocolate. It's really not. You, it's not the help that If it's that we get from chocolate you want to get the highest amount of cacao possible and for those of you who are absolute Warriors and just love chocolate, there are some Brands like eating evolved where they make one called Midnight coconut or just 100% cacao with some coconut flakes in it. It has no sweetener added that for those of you who don't have as many issues with digestive problems. I would say you could potentially get the stevia-sweetened or the monk fruit sweetened chocolates. And Just really give the notion of like, look for organic in the sourcing of those sweeteners. And moderation, of course, is key here. That's kind of the most important thing I would look for, like, what is the recommended portion size or serving size when you're choosing it because like anything we can over consume it but inherently chocolate does have a lot of health benefits. It has a little bit of magnesium which is I'm obviously really passionate about minerals and it doesn't have A huge quantity but it does have Museum in it cacao also can be considered a Prebiotic fiber. So helpful helpful for nourishing those little good gut bacteria and allowing them to flourish and survive. So I am a big fan of chocolate.

Kristin Kirkpatrick, MS, RD, LD · Answer

Hey Ed. Great question is chocolate healthy or unhealthy. So this is really dependent on the type of chocolate that you're consuming. So let's start with that. If you think about chocolate chocolate is an incredibly healthy components of a plant-based diet because it does in fact come from a plant, it comes from the cocoa bean. So if we were to get 100% cocoa and we were to consume that, it would taste super bitter. You wouldn't be very tasty just on its own. Own, but it would have tons of flavonoids, and antioxidants, and all these great benefits that we look towards when we're trying to improve our longevity improve our health. Now, what happens though is that when you get a chocolate bar, that's a traditional chocolate bar. Many of the qualities of the being go away, or they're significantly diminished because milk is added in. So now we're going from dark chocolate to melt chocolate. We have a high content of Rated fat and then sometimes a lot of sugar can be added in as well. So the bottom line here, is that if you want to enjoy chocolate I say go for it. I like to have chocolate every single solitary day and what I focus on is about 74 percent or greater cocoa content. Now, why am I not recommending 85% or 90%? Because they don't taste that great. Now, we're looking at Baker's chocolate, you'll have it once and you'll be like, oh my gosh, I'm going to go back to my milk chocolate, that's Or 50%. So go with dark chocolate. The more dark, it is, the more flavonoids, the more benefits you're going to get even if it has some sugar. See if you can get sugar a little lower on the ingredient list that will be helpful as well. But chocolate is great because it comes from a plants. And so anything that comes from a plant is going to have benefit. We just have to figure out how to add it into our diet.

Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS · Answer

So this very wants to know is chocolate healthy or unhealthy, it depends on the chocolate. Now I know that's a frustrating answer and I know that chocolate has been in the news a lot and people talk about how it's a health food which it is if it's the right kind of chocolate and let me explain what I mean by that. So you can have a chocolate bar that you get in the 7-Eleven that's 90% sugar and a little bit of milk and you know, 100 different chemicals and different things that stabilize it and know that is Not on any level on any planet healthy, but you can also get organic dark chocolate, say 65 percent cacao, which is usually on the label. If there's a real amount of cacao in it, they will tell you because that's a selling point that's made with organic substance, not overly sweetened and that is, in fact, a health food because the flavanols in dark chocolate lower blood pressure, they are anti-inflammatory Is all kinds of research and literature on the flavanols in dark chocolate. They're very, very good for you. Some of the things flavanols you and coffee, by the way, but you've seen almost none of that in milk chocolate and certainly not in white chocolate, and certainly not in cheap candy bars. So, asking of chocolate. As a category is healthy or unhealthy is a little difficult to answer because it's a big category and there's a lot of crap in it and there's a lot of stuff that is really just very very good for your health. I was square of dark. Chocolate of, I would say cacao over percent over 60% after 70 or 80. It gets really bitter but somewhere in that sweet spot very healthy. Not addictive. Doesn't make you like a some bars. Make you want to just eat more and more of it. You can stop at one little square and there's a lot of data showing that that's associated with a very healthy body and a very healthy lifestyle. So if that's the chocolate you're talking about, you better tell him.

JJ Virgin, CNS · Answer

One of the things I love to prescribe is dark chocolate every day, one to two ounces and there are a myriad of health benefits to it, including the great polyphenols for your gut and great focus and mood. However, you can make a good thing bad, depending on the type of chocolate that you are eating. Now, I just was in Peru, holy smokes, the chocolate, there is like an entirely different food. What you want to make sure of is that you're getting organic dark? But, and you are really being careful with how much sugar is added. You can actually get 100% dark chocolate. So you get all of the benefits that cow and none of the sugar, but if you can't find that, are you can't take that. It's a pretty Advanced taste then 85 percent or higher. Remember the higher the cacao content, the lower the sugar one. Little simple thing you can do, there is eat dark chocolate. That's been sweetened with Ali. Lohse monk fruit Stevia or erythritol. That's Another way to deal with that nurse from different dark chocolate brands out there now that do that. But notice I keep saying dark because what you want to make sure of is that you're eating dark chocolate, that it's high in Cal because the cap Cacao is the polyphenols that are doing the good stuff. You also get from chocolate 3, a theobromine which is great for your mood but you want to make sure it doesn't have milk and it doesn't have a bunch of added sugar and it doesn't have artificial sweeteners. That's how you could make a good thing bad.

Keith Ayoob, EdD, RDN, FAND · Answer

Is chocolate healthy or unhealthy? Oh, I love this question because I love chocolate and I actually eat some chocolate every day. Don't want to go, that's my indulgence. But is it healthy or unhealthy? And it depends on a lot of factors. How much you're eating for one thing and what's the percent of cocoa solids in the chocolate that you're having? So if it's a, you know, a candy bar, for example, and it's a solid chocolate candy bar, you want it to, for maximum impact, you want as high a percentage cocoa as possible. And I really recommend at least 70%. So that's a very dark chocolate bar. I've been known to have much higher levels of cocoa solids. But when you get at 70% cocoa or above, you're not only getting more of those antioxidants that are in cocoa, but you're getting less sugar as well. Now, how much is fair gain? Well, the research on chocolate, by the way, is very, is pretty positive. It's been shown to help reduce blood pressure, increase blood flow. It's loaded with antioxidants. And some of the population studies have shown that people who do eat chocolate more regularly and dark chocolate more regularly have a, you know, overall a healthier cardiovascular system. But, you know, those are not going to show causation per se. But to keep it real, keep that percentage of cocoa high, 70% or above, and keep it, keep the portion real. I recommend about an ounce a day is where you, you know, as much as you need. And that's about 160 calories or so. But again, if it's 70% cocoa or higher, you're going to get a lot more of those antioxidants and a lot less sugar.

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Is chocolate healthy or unhealthy?

Abby Langer, RD

Abby Langer, RD

Meg Gerber, RD, LD, IFNCP, CGN

Kristin Kirkpatrick, MS, RD, LD

Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS

JJ Virgin, CNS

Keith Ayoob, EdD, RDN, FAND