Everyone at melslife loves chocolate.  What’s there not to like?

The chocolate we eat is usually comprised of raw and processed foods – fats like cocoa butter and sugar - blended together.  The flavor of raw chocolate is derived from the seed or bean of a cacao tree.  There are many varieties of  cacao seeds, but the three most popular varieties are Criollo, Forastero and Trinitario.

These seeds initially have a bitter taste and must be fermented to develop their unique flavor.  They are then roasted and ground into cocoa powder.  There are unlimited amounts of flavors that can be created by this process, which makes eating chocolate and discovering its different flavors fun and satisfying.

Dark chocolate is a rich source of flavonoids – similar to red wine, apples, onions, some nuts and cranberries – and researchers believe it can help maintain cardiovascular health.  Just 50 grams of chocolate may contain as many flavonoids as 6 apples, two glasses of red wine, and 7 onions.

In a recent study which compared a diet low in flavonoids to one high in chocolate, those people who ate chocolate had higher anti-oxidant levels in their blood.  Other studies show that chocolate can reduce your blood pressure, because there is a substance in cocoa – nitric oxide (NO) – that helps our body’s chemical processes, which is critical for blood flow and blood pressure.  Many studies also point out that chocolate may have higher Oxygen Absorption Capacity (ORAC) values than prunes or the superfood blueberries.

What worries us is the calories in chocolate.  If you want to indulge, select dark chocolates containing at least 70 percent cocoa solids, which should have lower levels of cocoa butter.  The more non-fat cocoa solids a chocolate product contains, the more antioxidants it will have.  If your chocolate contains fat ingredients other than cocoa butter, the harmful saturated and trans fats will cancel out any possible health benefits.