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Dark chocolate can help improve blood circulation

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Cocoa powder and dark chocolate can help improve blood circulation, according to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).

The Swiss group, Barry Callebaut, the world’s largest maker of chocolate products, which supplies food companies such as Nestle and Hershey with cocoa and chocolate products, said on Tuesday that it had provided evidence to EFSA that eating 10g of dark chocolate or its equivalent in cocoa that were high in flavanols helped blood flow.

If the European Commission signs off on the EFSA ruling, the company and its customers would have the right to use the health claim on packaging for products such as chocolate drinks, cereal bars and biscuits, the company said.

“As the first company receiving such a health claim, we see new market potential both for us and for our customers,” Chief Executive Juergen Steinemann said in a statement.

chocolate_healthy_heart_lancastria

Dark chocolate

For the clinical studies it conducted to back up the claim, Barry Callebaut said it used a special process to make cocoa products that maintains the flavanols, which are usually mostly destroyed during conventional chocolate-making.


In an opinion posted on the EFSA website, a scientific panel concluded that a cause and effect relationship had been established between the consumption of cocoa flavanols and the maintenance of normal vasodilation, which aids blood flow.

A string of scientific studies in recent years have shown the potential for health benefits from eating chocolate. Research last year suggested it might be associated with a one-third reduction in the risk of developing heart disease.

The European Union has been clamping down on health claims for food products, approving only some 200 out of over 2 500 applications earlier this year and giving food companies until the end of 2012 to remove any rejected claims.

Chocolate as healthy as fruit

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IT’S what chocoholics have always dreamed of hearing. Scientists have announced that their favourite treat is actually better for them than fruit.

Not only that, but chocolate is being heralded as the latest “super food”.

So it’s goodbye to the feeling of guilt over reaching for just one more truffle or sec­retly nibbling away at a melt-in-the-mouth bar between meals.
Addicts can break out a box of soft centres to celebrate the revelation that chocolate’s health-boosting pot­ent­ial could turn it into a lifesaver.

Researchers have proved that it is packed with more healthy plant compounds and antioxidants gram-for-gram than fruit juice and provides far more nutritional goodness than food experts had previously thought.

Dark chocolate

Dark chocolate

The verdict came after US scientists compared cocoa powder, the raw ingredient of chocolate, with powders made from fruits like acai berries, blueberries, cranberries and pomegranates, the “super fruits” known for powerful health-giving properties.

Research into dark chocolate, containing around 60 per cent cocoa, and cocoa drinks found that they too had more antioxidant activity and more flavanols – health-giving plant chem­icals – than fruit. Only mugs of hot chocolate let the theory down. They have few healthy ingredients because the drink has been processed.

The discovery means cocoa beans meet the nutritional criteria needed for fruits to be classed as “super fruits”, according to the scientists at the Hershey Center for Health & Nutrition.

“The compounds in dark chocolate are just as good as the botanical compounds in fruit,” said Dr Debra Miller, a senior member of the team.


“Cacao seeds should be considered a ‘super fruit’ and products derived from cacao seed extracts, such as natural cocoa powder and dark chocolate, as ‘super foods’.” It all sounds too good to be true for chocolate lovers – and it is. The findings do not alter the fact that their favourite is high in fat and sugar, meaning dieticians say it should be balanced with less yummy foods such as brown rice and pulses.

“Dark chocolate needs to be considered as more of a tropical fruit like avocado which has a high fat content so you need to moderate the calories side of things,” said Dr Miller.

“But people could create drinks and recipes containing cocoa to get the benefits without the calories.”