Cocoa, cacao, dark chocolate

Question
Is organic CACAO a good product for heart health along with any other support to one body........I am 68 love to exercise and eath healthy foods.........would love to hear about the positives and negatives.........THANK YOU,

Bob

Answer
Hello,

Cacao (aka cocoa) is the major health-significant ingredient in chocolate -- the darker the chocolate the more there's cocoa, the greater health benefits.  As an antioxidant, dark chocolate is 7 times stronger than blueberries, which are considered functional foods for their strong free radicals scavengering. The negatives you are asking about are mostly due to sugar content in chocolate. The alternative is using unsweetened dark cocoa powder to cook with since it has most calories from fat, not carbs and is good for low-carb dieters.

The fats in dark chocolate are mostly heart-healthy monounsaturated fats. Cocoa also has plant-originated saturated fats same as  in palm and coconut oils. Though being saturated, they are so called medium-chain fats shown to be beneficial. Read more:

Is Chocolate Healthy?
Chocolate and Parkinson's disease

As to your question about organic cocoa, the general information about organic foods
can be found here and on the website  of the World Cocoa Foundation, there's plenty of information specifically about organic cocoa.

Tanya Zilberter  

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