CHOCOLATE IS EVERYTHING.
They say love is what makes the world go round, but I have a sneaking suspicion that chocolate is really the driving force behind so much of today’s good. You’ll find that it’s almost impossible to be angry, rude, unkind, or unpleasant after a nice cup of peppermint hot chocolate during the winter seasons, or after a delicious batch of deep dish chocolate chip caramel filled cookies. Everything about chocolate is wonderful – save for the adding to your waistline part.
Did you know that chocolate isn’t just wonderful for your taste buds, but it’s also good for your body? Here are 10 reasons you need to start eating more chocolate today:
1. Prevents Strokes — Chocolate can help to decrease your risk of stroke by up to 20%, or so a Swedish study discovered. Just 45 grams of dark chocolate each week is enough to give you all the delicious flavonoids – antioxidants – that will help to reduce your stroke risk.
2. Reduces Blood Inflammation — The proteins in your blood that cause inflammation can lead to heart attacks, strokes, and other health problems, but thankfully there’s always chocolate to prevent these proteins. One dark chocolate bar per week is enough to get rid of those inflammation-causing proteins. See? Chocolate is good for you!
3. Reduces Heart Attack Risk — Chocolate has been found to reduce your risk of blood clots, and the 2010 study that found it out was cause for much rejoicing. Thanks to these findings, you can eat more chocolates and reduce the risk of clots which lead to heart attacks and strokes. Your heart wants you to eat chocolate.
READ MORE: Vegan Chocolate Pie Recipe
4. Boosts Math Abilities — This may sound silly, but a study found that chocolate helps you to do mental math calculations much more easily. Got a test coming up? Break out those chocolates!
5. Fights UV Damage —Worried about the health of your skin under the bright sun? Add a bit of dark chocolate to your diet, and protect your skin from the UV rays.
6. Prevent Diabetes — You may think that the sugar in chocolate would be bad for diabetics, and it is. However, for those who don’t yet have the problem, chocolate can help to increase insulin sensitivity – effectively reducing your risk of developing the health problem.
7. Help to Prevent Cancer — The world is looking for natural cancer treatment and prevention options, and one of them just happens to be chocolate. Cocoa is loaded with a compound called pentameric procyanidin, which stops cancer cells from spreading. A study done at Georgetown University in 2005 used this compound to treat cancer cells, and it suppressed their ability to divide and spread.
8. Makes You Live Longer — Eat all the chocolates and live past 100? Probably not, but you can add two years to your life expectancy according to a Harvard study. The oldest person in the world – Jeanne Louise Calment – ate 2.5 pounds of dark chocolate every week, probably what helped her to live so long!
9. Fights Coughs — Got a bad case of the coughs? Chocolate is loaded with theobromine, a chemical compound that reduces the activity of your vagus nerve. The vagus is the part of your brain that triggers coughing fits, so reducing its activity reduces your coughing.
READ MORE: Happy Hour Hot Fudge
10. Gives Your Brain a Boost — A team of scientists at the Johns Hopkins University discovered a link between dark chocolate and a healthy brain. Chocolate boosts the health of your brain cells, and protects it from damage caused by strokes. It can reduce the damage done to your brain – keeping it healthy and working properly!
