Chocolate Benefits
Chocolate has many benefits. It is made from cocoa tree which translates that it contains many benefits that can be obtained from other vegetables. These perks are from flavonoids which serve as antioxidants. Antioxidants are able to protect the body from rapid aging caused by free radicals which can do damage tantamount to heart diseases. Chocolates are containing large amount of antioxidants as much as eight times more than that of strawberries. Flavonoids are also able to maintain a normal blood pressure through the making of nitric oxide and regulate certain important hormones in the body.
According to a Mayan belief, chocolate is medicine. It is considered to be the “drink of the gods”. It is derived from cocoa beans and not high in calories. But recent innovation can cause fat since it contains sugar as well as milk.
Chocolates are good for the heart. A small bar a day can help the heart run well. It can lower blood pressure and lower cholesterol by up to 10%. Aside from protecting our hearts, chocolates also taste good, stimulates endorphin making which gives a feeling of pleasure and serotonin which serves as an anti-depressant. Also it contains theobromine that serves as a stimulant. This information doesn’t mean that a person should be consuming a pound of it per day. Most studies made utilized no more than 100 grams of dark chocolate a day to be able to obtain the benefits. One bar of dark choco contains 400 calories. But if you are an avid consumer of chocolate, you should cut down the source of other sweets or snacks. Chocolate is a complex food that contains over 300 compounds as well as chemical even with a single bite. To really be able to enjoy this treat, one should take time to bite and taste it in order to assess the smell, feel and taste of each piece.
In recent studies made in Europe, 38% of German women and 34 for French do consume chocolate to make them happy and cheerful. Many doctors suggest eating chocolate to alleviate depression as well as stimulating the pleasure center of our brains.
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Chocolaty Wedding
Over the years, chocolates have evolved from just being desserts meant to be served on birthdays or on other such occasions. People have discovered that the chocolate has so many other uses, far more than sweets for their sweets.
Couples are the ones who make the most use of these chocolates. Having the connotation of intimacy and passion, chocolates have been in the romance world since time immemorial. This is why couples have always clung on to chocolates, to make use of its romantic essence. Thus, chocolates have spring up every time there is a love that needs to be celebrated, whether it be a crush’s birthday, or a valentine’s day, an anniversary with a girlfriend, and during the ultimate celebration of love – a wedding.
The most important day in a couple’s life, the wedding day, should be unforgettable and memorable and all efforts are put into making it such.
The distribution of invitation cards is the first step of announcing your wedding to your loved ones. Why not add an extra special touch and make your invites chocolaty? Edible chocolate cards could be personalized and sent out to your loved ones. What an elegant touch that will help your guests remember your special day.
The oozing of chocolaty goodness shouldn’t stop there. On the day when the exchange of vows would be made, how about brightening it up by serving an extraordinary chocolate platter to your guests and a lovely and sumptuous chocolate wedding cake for the couple. The wedding cake is the centerpiece of the wedding, no doubt an important part of the grand occasion. The cake must be designed according to the couple;s tastes and likings, making it chocolate would narrow down the choices a bit. The couple could also opt for special chocolate bouquets which they could feast on after the ceremony. Lastly, the couple could end the night by handing out special personalized wedding chocolate thank you gifts.
Your life depends on how you add zest to it. Make the most of the special occasions in your life, especially your wedding. Making it chocolate-inspired is one innovative idea.
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Chocolate Dessert With Breakfast
Recent studies have found out that integrating dessert into your well-balanced 600-calorie breakfast, that contains carbohydrates and proteins, allows people who are on a strict diet to shed unwanted pounds and maintain it in the long run.
Scientists categorized 193 clinically obese, non-diabetic adults into two groups. Such groups were provided with virtually the same low-carbohydrate diets containing 1,400 calories every day for females and 1,600 calories per day for males. Nevertheless, one group was given a low-carbohydrate 300-calorie breakfast, while the other group was provided with a 600-calorie breakfast that’s loaded with carbohydrates and protein, and it always came with a dessert.
In the first 16 weeks, losing weight didn’t have difference for the two groups. However, following the 32-week period, people who had a dessert, like cake or cookies, along with their breakfast were able to shed about 40 pounds more as compare to those who consumed the lighter, low-carbohydrate breakfast.
“What you eat for breakfast does not make you fat,” in accordance with professor Daniela Jakubowicz, part of the Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the Diabetes Unit at Wolfson Medical Center. She cited that breakfast gives energy you can use for the whole day. It can increase your metabolism and aid in the thinking processes. If a low-calorie diet restricts carbohydrate intake in the morning, your metabolism tends to crash. That said, the body will compensate which will eventually promote weight gain the moment you consume carbs, which is likely to happen since you’ll be starving come lunchtime. “Breakfast increases metabolism and decreases hunger,” she added.
Research has it that eating chocolate in the morning tends to maintain the levels of serotonin during the day, so you won’t feel depressed. The moment the chocolate you had in the morning crosses your mind, you would not recall the fact that it did make you happy, given that you had it when your level of serotonin was up. Thus, it can decrease your dependence on chocolate.
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Stress-Busting Chocolate
In accordance with dietician Silke Restemeyer, who is working for a Germany-based nutrition association, chocolate can indeed uplift the spirits. She says that chocolates contain plenty of fat and tryptophan. These substances make sure that higher amounts of the neurotransmitter serotonin are created in your brain, thus giving us happy feelings.
Many people link chocolate consumption to positive memories of childhood. The sensation that you get from chocolate as it melts in the mouth gives a warm feeling, which may actually give you temporary distraction from all the apprehensions of daily life.
Nevertheless, this little pleasure typically lasts only for a little while. “After all, you can’t eat that much chocolate for it to have a sustained beneficial effect – and nor should you,” Restemeyer said, pointing out the high calorie and fat content of typical chocolate.
A tiny amount of chocolate every day will help you deal with stressful moments. However you should stay away from other sweet treats or snacks. Snack alternatives like dried fruit or fruit and nut combinations will provide you with sufficient energy that you need to help you keep stress at work or the stress of personal relationships in check.
At certain moments that you need chocolate, keenly observe yourself. When you’re always craving chocolate, you must take particular measures to curb it. Some measures include basic things such as drinking a relaxing cup of warm tea, taking a brief walk, and practicing relaxation techniques, just to name a few. Do any of these thing, and you are sure to dispel the blues.
“It would of course be preferable to avoid the stressful situations where possible, or to learn to cope better with them internally,” Restemeyer says. That way, you eat chocolate while enjoying a quiet moment, rather than considering it as an antidote to stress. That, I believe, is the true essence of chocolate!
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Chocolate And Magnesium
Having a good health can get difficult in this day and age. With easy access to all the processed and cholesterol-loaded food products, it especially gets harder. Also, it makes sense the less healthy stuff is a less hefty choice.
Being religious to healthy foods in your diet is essential. Cocoa beans are just an example of food items that pack a lot of nutritional benefits. Cocoa bean is the richest source of magnesium in nature. Yep, you read right.
Magnesium refers to the mineral that is essential to the health, and it is typically contained in different parts of the body. To allow the body to fully absorb the ingested calcium, enough magnesium in the body is required. Most people take calcium supplements without knowing that magnesium is crucial in optimal calcium absorption. Therefore, you can have cocoa along with the calcium supplements that you take.
More to these, magnesium is efficient in maintaining a heart healthy. Cocoa is known to pack a lot of benefits to the heart, and one of the reasons is the high magnesium contents.
Since cocoa beans give abundant, digestible magnesium, they boast of heart-related nutritional benefits. The upside in a high-magnesium diet is that those who adhere to it are less likely to develop blood clots in the heart later on in life. This will be particularly useful to those who are predisposed to developing heart issues. In addition to these, magnesium helps maintain healthy blood pressure levels.
Those who are diagnosed with Diabetes can take advantage of cocoa beans, as well. Approximately 80% of diabetic people have low levels of intracellular magnesium. To people who are likely to develop diabetes, lack of magnesium can increase your possibilities of developing the disease.
There is an array of benefits that magnesium can offer. These no-nonsense benefits include less frequency of migraines, prevention of heart arrhythmias, lower risk of stroke, and cramp relief, just to name a few. But of course, stick with dark chocolate.
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Medicinal Chocolate?
Chocolate, specifically the beverage version, has long been known as an effective treatment to several illnesses. It is said to reduce anemia, stop the progress of diarrhea, ease an overworked brain, and somehow soothe an upset stomach. It is also used for children who are underweight and also stimulate the nervous systems of those who are physically weak without major health conditions.
In the Dominican Republic, to treat the common cold symptoms, chocolate drinks, that have coconut milk and onion in them, were taken.
Traditional healers in Oaxaca, Mexico are called “curanderos”. And story has it that they used chocolate in treating “espanto” or “susto”, illness which is said to be caused by getting startled or frightened. The traditional healer and patient go back to where it took place bringing cocoa beans along with them. They plant these beans into the ground and by doing so, the patient will be healed in return. Other healers in Oaxaca even used chocolate against sting of scorpion, wasp, and bees.
In the contemporary times, chocolate is still being used in the medicine. People from San Joaquin Valley of California use fresh beaten eggs added to hot chocolate as a cure against fatigue. Also, chocolate mixed with cinnamon and rue can supposedly treat stomach aches.
Furthermore, aside from the beans, certain parts of the cacao tree are being utilized by indigenous people of America. The cacao bark is often used to when people have bloody stools and they are useful in decreasing abdominal pains, while cacao flowers mixed with water can improve mental alertness and lessen nervousness. Cacao fat is used in disinfecting minor wounds and burns as well as a moisturizer for dry or chapped skin, so is cacao oil or butter. Cacao oil or butter can be applied on hemorrhoids to alleviate irritation, while cacao fruit pulp id used in pregnant women to facilitate easier delivery.
However, some people say that the said results are just placebo effects and the pleasure of eating or drinking chocolate is only the reason why these people are feeling better. Which is which? You decide.
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The Guardian of Chocolate?
If you are keen on reading about the long history of chocolate, you probably have read somewhere that chocolate and Aztecs come hand in hand. Aztecs have associated cacao trees with the god of agriculture, Quetzalcoatl. According to myths, Quetzalcoatl was the one who brought cacao to the Earth. But such actions didn’t exactly make his superiors happy so he got kicked out of the heavens for giving it to humans. As he escaped, he swore to return one day as a “fair-skinned bearded man” to save the earth.
The earliest Aztecs highly thought of the cacao plant. They believed it to be a great source of strength and wealth and Quetzalcoatl was its guardian, or so they say. This pretty much explains why cacao beans are so special that they were even used as their form of currency at that time.
The Aztecs were among the first ones to work around with cacao beans, but they didn’t make use of it for any culinary purpose at first. They only developed interest in its edibility after observing certain animals, particularly monkeys. Only the pulp of the cacao tree was utilized then, only after a certain stretch of time did they begin using the beans, too.
Myth has it that since Quetzalcoatl left the Aztec empire, people have been awaiting his return. While patiently waiting, they sent offerings of cocoa beans and chocolate drink. Because of their high hopes, when they saw a ship nearing their shores, they instantly thought it was Quetzalcoatl. The Europeans took this vulnerability as a chance to easily conquer their lands, and they were obviously successful with their invasion
Chocolate’s history is indeed covered in legends and myths, not to mention depressing stories. But all these stuff make chocolate all the more interesting and entertaining.
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