Is It the Dark in Dark Chocolate?

The use of the term “dark chocolate” is misleading: There is nothing about the color of the chocolate that will tell you the flavanol content. One of the key places in the manufacturing chain where significant loss of flavanols occurs, after fermentation, is an alkalization step called dutching. The Dutchman van Houten discovered 200 years ago that adding alkali-potash to cocoa nibs would enhance the taste, texture, and appearance of the cocoa. Dutched cocoa has the bitterness eliminated, together with most of the active flavanols. One relatively underreported effect of alkalization is, in fact, darkening of cocoa, so that a very dark chocolate might be essentially devoid of flavanols.

If the industry wants us to use chocolate as a health food, then they will have to change their behavior. Specifically, what the world needs is a label on each package that describes the flavanol content of the chocolate. It should be obvious that the percent of cocoa, like the color of chocolate, does not represent a measure of flavanols at all. The medical community should encourage the industry to participate. Probably the most effective mechanism is for the lay press to stop talking about dark chocolate or percent cocoa and start discussing flavanol content.

A second issue involves chocolate as a health food. We like chocolate, and the average person eats a great deal of it every year. Although there is little evidence to indicate that chocolate is a cause of obesity, weight loss in the presence of a high chocolate intake, necessarily rich in fat and sugar, will be very difficult. Here, however, there is good news. Cocoa—as opposed to chocolate—is prepared by squeezing out the fat. Indeed this fat, called cocoa butter, although known as white chocolate, is not really chocolate at all. The resultant cocoa powder retains all the flavor of chocolate but is much lower in calories. Although no commercially available cocoa has a high flavanol content because of extensive processing, it is clear that natural cocoa powder can be a health food.

Xocai is made with cocoa that is cold pressed and no other company has that. High in antioxidants.

Incorporate Xocai healthy chocolate into your diet for superb health.

Want to know more ?   I'll be happy to talk to you.  http://www.leisaloveschocolate.com/ 

Taken from http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/116/21/2360.full