Why Chocolates can be good for the Health?

Chocolates is the crowds favorite, almost everybody can’t resist having it. Young and old enjoy eating chocolates as a part of dessert or just fulfilling their cravings. But have you wonder if having a sweet tooth for chocolates can give you health benefits?

There were a research that proves chocolates specifically dark chocolates and cocoa powder has health benefits and it can even make life sweeter and longer. According to these researches, chocolates have substances that are natural antioxidant like resveratrol. Antioxidants are substances or nutrients in our foods which can prevent or slow the oxidative damage to our body. Antioxidants act as "free radical scavengers" and hence prevent and repair damage done by these free radicals.

And the antioxidant that was recently found resveratrol in chocolates. It is produced by certain fruits and vegetables including grapes, raspberries, mulberries and peanuts. The difference of resveratrol to other antioxidants is that it can cross the blood-brain barrier to help protect your brain and nervous system. Here the other health benefits of resveratrol :

• Protecting your cells from free radical damage
• Inhibiting the spread of cancer, especially prostate cancer
• Lowering your blood pressure
• Keeping your heart healthy and improving elasticity in your blood vessels
• Normalizing your anti-inflammatory response
  

Though chocolates have some health benefits, from nutritional perspective there are still better food to eat than chocolate. Here are some advices from Dr. Mercola if you are eating chocolates:

• If you eat chocolate, only eat dark chocolate

Dark chocolate has antioxidant properties, which can actually help to protect the body from damaging oxidative stress. It appears that adding milk to the chocolate cancels out the antioxidant effects, according to a study published in the journal Nature.

• Only eat chocolate if you're healthy

Chocolate, even if it is dark, still contains large quantities of sugar, and eating sugar is one of the most devastating things you can do to your health. If you're sick, your immune system is working hard to combat your illness, but sugar weakens the immune system. So eating chocolate will only make it harder for your immune system to fight the illness.

• Make sure you eat it in moderation

Even if you're healthy, you don't want to eat huge amounts of chocolate. The key is to eat it in moderation (something like once every two weeks) and enjoy it when you eat it. A small bit of chocolate can be very satisfying if you savor each bite, rather than just wolfing it down.