This is some possibly great news for my fellow chocoholics. I found an interesting article the other day about the possible medicinal and blood pressure lowering properties found in compounds in chocolate. Before you rejoice, here’s the scoop on how chocolate can really benefit your health:

1.) They say chocolate is actually good for a pregnant woman to consume in moderation. It actually transfers to the fetus as a sort of “euporia inducing” pleasure sensation for the baby. Don’t know for sure if it’s bunk or not, but many seem to believe it’s true.

2.) Chocolate as a natural aphrodisiac. I can attest this is true as a woman. Give me chocolate and I automatically think of sex, or maybe it’s the other way around…

3.) Chocolate may have some antioxidant propertie. The cocoa bean which chocolate is derived from, has been shown to have antioxidant powers when eaten.

4.) A recnet study of aging men in The Netherlands, known for its decadent chocolate, demonstrated that those who ate the equivalent of one-third of a chocolate bar every day had lower blood pressure and a reduced risk of death.

Wow - pretty impressive. The seemingly natural antidepressant and euphoria inducing benefits of chocolate were enough for me, but add in antioxidant double duty and heart health benefits, and it’s a shoe-in for the best sweet ever created in my book. Before you go out and stock up on chocolate though, the study, while strongly persuasive has not been conclusive in its findings quite yet. If only they could knock the fat and calories out of chocolate, I’d be 100% ON BOARD!

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 30th, 2006 at 7:21 am and is filed under Foods. 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.