Dark Chocolate Benefits

We hear it all the time in the media "dark chocolate is healthy", "it is a superfood", "it has antioxidants", but is that true? So before we talk about the nutrition let's find out how is chocolate made.

Chocolate comes from cocoa beans which come from the pods of the fruit that grows on the cacao or coco tree. Once those beans are fermented and dried they can be used to create chocolate. The fermentation process is where some of the flavor comes from but not all. So why do some bars taste different than others even though they're both called dark or semi-sweet? Flavor starts with the bean itself so were it's grown, how it's fermented makes a difference.

Once the dried beans are cracked into cocoa nibs and melted  down you get cocoa liquor which is the pure unrefined form of chocolate that contains both the solids, the chocolatey part, and the cocoa butter which is a natural fat present in the bean. And now for a quick terminology breakdown! Cacao is made by cold pressing unroasted cocoa beans. Cocoa powder is essentially cocoa solids that remain after cocoa butter is extracted.

A lot could be said about cocoa powder but pretty much if you're using an unsweetened version that does not contain added sugar you're good in the health department. So there could be different amounts of cocoa solids and butter in a bar and that number which leads to a huge difference in taste is cocoa percentage. So let's talk about cocoa percentage. 100Êcao is unsweetened chocolate and the only ingredient is unsweetened chocolate. I don't know if you've tasted this bar but it's disgusting.

Most people cannot really enjoy a hunk of this it's more commonly used in baking or cooking. So 100% is at the top of the spectrum. As you go down the spectrum the cocoa percentage will decrease and I'm going to show you how the sugar will increase along with the amount of milk products. So a bar could have 25% solids and 45% cocoa butter and it would be a 70% bar or it could have 35% solids and35% cocoa butter and it would still be a 70% bar and that is one of the reasons that some of the bars even if they're the same percentage are gonna take a little bit different we don't know the recipes. So I went to the store and I spend a lot of time with chocolate and labels. Some of the brands will include the cacao percentage like these.

However because these bars are flavored caramel, almond, mint, whatever we want to make sure there aren't any variables when we are comparing the macro nutrients so we're going to use plain chocolate for comparison sake. But I did want to show you that the cacao percentage is included sometimes on the design. To compare I picked up these bars. They are all the same brand of chocolate in different percentages. So the first thing we want to do is make sure that the serving size is the same and all the products were comparing as we discussed in my unhealthy versus healthy snacks video. As you can see 2 of these are noting the serving size to be 1 section or 15 grams, 1 of them is 3 sections 38grams, and 1 is 4 sections 45 grams. So that's probably because the 2 that are noting for 1 section are both baking bars and they don't really need to suggest a specific serving size. With chocolate bars or candy bars usually about 40 grams is a serving so both of these have just decided to do 39 and 45.America is stupid. I don't know why we do that. Everyone else in the world goes per100 grams why can't we just be the same? Doesn't really matter. The point is we need these to all be the same so that we can compare accurately and we are going to use 40 grams to compare. So let's take a second to notice the trends. As the cocoa percentage increases the fat and saturated fat also relatively increase.

The carbs and sugar on the other hand decrease. So higher cocoa percentage equals more fat and less sugar and this is the important correlation that we need to take from this comparison. A lot of people think that milk chocolate must be higher in fat because it's worse for you but that's actually not the case. There is so much naturally-occurring fat in cocoa butter that the more pure the chocolate the more fat there's gonna be and of course the less sugar. For fun let me also add in a good old regular milk chocolate bar up there and it does stick with the trend having less fat and more sugar per serving. So that brings us to where does milk chocolate fall on the spectrum? Generally, this is how it breaks down terminology wise. Unsweetened,  brute, or bitter chocolate it usually 99% or more but the range is 85-100%. Bittersweet is the next range and that if 60-85% although the FDA only requires 35% from the cocoa bean for that label bittersweet to be slapped on it. Semisweet ranges from 35-60%. Milk only needs 10% pure chocolate and contains added cocoa butter and sugar which is why it is most obviously a candy bar. There is very little true cocoa in this bar. White chocolate is based on sugar, milk, and cocoa butter without the solids which is why it's white. It's 0% cocoa. It isn't even really chocolate.

How do we apply it to daily life? And when is chocolate good for me? So does chocolate provide antioxidants? Yes and no. Cacao and cocoa beans are powerhouses full of antioxidants. But how much of these are we getting in the chocolate that we buy and what are the nutrients? Because you know eating this, or this, or this is not the same as eating cacao beans. So this is where those percentages become important.

Chocolate as a health food has become a little bit of a fad and the companies are trying to take advantage of it. They want you to buy their product and if they can make it seem healthy even better. But the truth is we really need to be consuming at least 70% dark. Some people even recommend 80% to absorb those benefits. The dairy and sugar in the lighter chocolate, while delicious, does lower the antioxidant content also really upping the calories and of course the sugar. Dark chocolate really dark chocolate does not inherently have sugar and that is important to remember is not a sweet food. The problem really is with the word "dark".

How dark does something have to be to be considered dark chocolate? Not that dark unfortunately. So back to these bars 41% is labeled as milk chocolate and 55% is labeled as dark chocolate. So there doesn't seem to be an official rule of where the line for milk and dark is but from my research about the 50% mark that's where companies start to kind of turn over to dark. Macro wise the difference between the 41, 55, and 80% is not really that different and that's one point that I wanna make in this video. Macro wise chocolate is still very dense in calories and fat and it actually has even more fat the darker you get. Too many calories and fat from a healthy food can be just as damaging as too many calories and sugar from an unhealthy food. I do want to point out the difference between the 55%dark which is actually milk and the 80% dark. Macro wise calories are about the same. Fat is again higher than the darker sugar is double in the lighter but also what can't be forgotten and this is I guess the point on the other hand is that those antioxidants are not going to be as accessible in this lighter bar.

Here's the next point I wanna make, dark chocolate, truly dark, will have more iron, magnesium, phosphorus, other minerals than milk chocolate. But it is not really enough to justify using these items these dark chocolates as sources for those minerals. If you look at the bars you'll see not all of the minerals are noted but iron is noted and you'll see that the iron levels get higher 30, 35, 40%the darker we get. What you have to remember is that 40% although it may be the daily required or recommended amount that is for a full 37 grams, 9pieces of this, to get 40% of your iron. So eating a full 37 grams or 9pieces of this would be way more than a daily recommended amount. You know that's a true indulgence. Most nutritionists would recommend one square per day. Plus do you know what else is high in magnesium and iron and phosphorus higher in fact? Pumpkin seeds But who wants to eat that when you can eat dark chocolate? This is my point. It's like red wine yes it may contain some antioxidants but the antioxidant thing is mostly an excuse for when you want to eat or drink it. 

Ultimately if you want to eat a piece of chocolate go ahead and eat it. The darker you can go the better. The more access you'll have to those antioxidants. But it still needs to be an occasional and honest indulgence and dark chocolate cannot be a primary source for these antioxidants and minerals. I'm really sorry if you're a dark chocolate fanatic. I am not telling you to not eat it. I am simply saying that some of us may need to re-evaluate the role that dark chocolate plays in our daily diets. And just for fun really quickly I wanna talk about some candies because this is where it really becomes a problem. You know the dark chocolate Doves and the dark chocolate Lindts and the dark chocolate Kisses that fool us. So Hershey's special dark has a seal, it says cocoa is a natural source of flavanol antioxidants and on the back it has a little blurb to talk about how healthy they are. 

But let's compare the macronutrients to milk chocolate kisses. Look they're pretty much the same. The same amount off at and only 2 grams different and sugar and as you know the darker chocolate should have more fat and less sugar it only has 2 grams. We know that no dark chocolate would really have 21 grams of sugar. That's added sugar. Well I looked it up because it does not tell you the cocoa percentage on this package. Hershey's Special Dark is only45% dark. 45. Do you remember do you remember the spectrum this 41% bar is labeled as milk they classified as 45% chocolate as dark. Some antics. Now Hershey's extra dark is 60% I looked that up but remember 60% is still not dark enough to really access those antioxidants. So this is where it becomes a problem with these candies that call themselves dark but they really aren't. Same goes you know with the Dove eggs and the Lindts they're all the same. If they say dark on them you really have to read the package you wanna make sure you know the ingredients and you want to make sure that the sugar is low it should be very low and the fat should be higher if it's true dark.

So don't be afraid of chocolate or of any food but we do need to A) be honest about our consumption of these foods and recognize when they're helping or hurting us so eating chocolate to get in your potassium is not really realistic B)educate ourselves so that we are informed enough to make those decisions that allow us to be honest. So I hope you guys enjoy this article. Don't forget to give it a thumbs up if you did and if you learned something and if you could share it on social media so that other people could learn that would be great and if you did enjoy this type of educational article with the nutritional breakdown.