Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Chocolate, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Part II)


The first thing a person that needs to done when reading a study is to consider the source. Who conducted the study? If a motorcycle manufacturer conducted an exclusive study on quality of motorcycles would you not expect their respective brand to be at the top? Similarly, who conducted all of the studies on the benefits of chocolate? Taking a closer look, it can be discovered that once the studies funded by chocolate interest groups were discarded, the ones left offered conflicting results.

It must be mentioned though, that some isolated compounds in cocoa did show certain health benefits. If people were to consume pure cocoa, they might be able to enjoy some health benefits such as a positive effect on blood pressure and glucose metabolism. The issue is that the majority of people eat processed chocolate with all the other less desirable ingredients such as added sugar, corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, milk fats/dairy cream, etc.). In many cases the actual cocoa content may very well be less than 20%. With this being the case, the general conclusion that chocolate is healthy is much less persuasive.

In Part 3 of this series we will begin to look at the supposed benefits from a critical thought perspective.

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Have a great 2009
Tom Thorne
http://www.feelingoutstanding.com/