Is chocolate healthy? Alas, the answer isn’t sweet
I’m pretty sure I won’t have any friends left once they’ve read this — especially with Halloween just days away. That’s because no matter how you break that candy bar, and no matter how many headlines you’ve seen about the health benefits of chocolate, the scientific evidence remains pretty slim.
Sure, you probably know that “white chocolate” (which doesn’t contain any chocolate at all) and milk chocolate (which is loaded with sugar and fat) are not healthy choices. But while dark chocolate is a better choice, it’s not a healthy one. I’m sorry, trick-or-treaters.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I’m a chocoholic myself, so I’m not happy about this, either. While I’ve never deluded myself into thinking of chocolate as a health food, say like antioxidant-rich kale, I believed — thanks to many published studies — that even one square of dark chocolate definitely had some health benefits.
When I did an internet search, I found plenty of articles saying just that, including Healthline’s “7 Proven Benefits of Chocolate” and the Cleveland Clinic’s “Heart Healthy Benefits of Chocolate.” Articles like these (and many more) report that chocolate may lower the risk of certain cancers, lower blood pressure, and reduce the risks of diabetes, stroke and heart disease.
Mucking up things, though, were other studies that suggest chocolate may increase our risk for other cancers, and we’d be fools not to know that eating too much can lead to obesity (and the troublesome health conditions that follow in its wake).
As a journalist, I know better than to believe everything I read, especially if it’s melting in my mouth. So I did a little investigating.
The top Google result for that question was a report (“Can chocolate be good for my health?”) on the Mayo Clinic website. To help me fact-check it, I called Marion Nestle, the much-respected professor of food and nutrition studies at New York University.
I read Nestle (who is no relation to the candy maker) the article’s lead paragraph, which states, in part, “chocolate’s reputation is on the rise, as a growing number of studies suggest that it can be a heart-healthy choice.”
She stopped me there to note that it’s not chocolate, but the flavanols in chocolate, that might have potential benefits. Flavanols are abundant in cocoa beans, which yield cocoa powder, which is then used to make chocolate, she said.
Nestle told me that if I eat more chocolate to up my flavanol intake, I’m consuming a lot more calories and fat, as well — which will be bad for my health. That’s because flavanol-rich cocoa has a bitter taste, so candy manufacturers add fats and sugars to create commercial — delicious-tasting — chocolate.
One recent study reported that “higher levels of chocolate consumption might be associated with a one-third reduction in the risk of developing cardiovascular disease.” That sounds like great news, but the study authors point out that those benefits would require “excessive consumption,” with the probable side effect of “weight gain, a risk factor for hypertension, diabetes, and dyslipidaemia,” which increases the chance of clogged arteries and heart attacks, stroke, or other circulatory concerns, especially in smokers. Not so great.
To wrap up my “investigation,” I spoke to Katherine Zeratsky, a registered dietitian and licensed nutritionist at the Mayo Clinic, and author of “Can chocolate be good for my health?” So, is it? “It’s a candy, and candy has a place in American diets,” she said. “That place is moderation.”
Zeratsky urged people to look for chocolate with a 65% or higher cocoa content. Essentially, that means only dark chocolate, since milk chocolate doesn’t have that much cocoa.
Enjoy it, but know it’s a treat.