It’s been known to bring us joy comfort and satisfaction.
When we eat chocolate our brain releases chemicals like endorphins that make us feel happy not to mention it’s tasty but they might just be another benefit to Chocolate.
Health Benefits of Cocoa
There are several articles online proclaiming the amazing health benefits of cocoa from being rich in antioxidants which could reduce the risk of diseases to being good for your vision and brain function.
But while cocoa might benefit us how does that translate to Chocolate? So Munah Bagharib Host of CNA Insider wants to find out if is chocolate good for us.
Making of Chocolate
But first, how much of our chocolate is actually made up of cocoa? To find out Munah Bagharib made her way to Singapore’s biggest chocolate factory where over 16,000 kg of chocolate are made daily.
So, in order to get a nice big block of chocolate, it takes more than just grinding cacao beans into cocoa powder.
The cocoa powder is mixed with milk powder and sugar and that recipe changes depending on what type of chocolate is being made.
Munah Bagharib: There are so many types of chocolate can you talk me through them what are the main differences?
Siddhartha Mathur (VP, Quality & Food Safety): So one is Dark chocolate then comes the Milk chocolate the White chocolate, and one is this Ruby chocolate. White chocolate is made from cocoa butter sugar and milk.
This may contain about 30% of cocoa butter. The milk chocolate contains cocoa powder milk and sugar approximately this one will contain about 25 to 30% of cocoa powder.
The last one is dark chocolate which has just cocoa and sugar. The dark chocolate is supposed to contain at least 35% of cocoa solids.
Siddhartha Mathur: Try this 100% cocoa tell me how you find it.
Munah Bagharib: It’s quite bitter so then is this 100% considered real chocolate?
Siddhartha Mathur: Yes
Munah Bagharib: So, actually there’s not much cocoa in some of these chocolates so then how is it that these can be called chocolate?
Siddhartha Mathur: Chocolates is a combination it’s a recipe that contains cocoa as one of the main ingredients when you get the beans and you crush the beans you get two things some you get is a cocoa powder which you see in terms of the brown powder, and you also get fat and this fat is a form of the cocoa butter. Particular white chocolate is made using only cocoa butter and that’s why you won’t find the browns in it.
Munah Bagharib: What do customers typically go for?
Siddhartha Mathur: Most customers for example here will go for milk chocolate maybe it’s because of the taste of the chocolate is also eaten not only for the health benefit but also for the rewarding feeling I think it comes from the milk chocolate more as compared to dark chocolate.
As we’ve seen earlier it’s the cocoa that’s deemed to have medicinal properties but all the chocolates have varying amounts of cocoa in them.
The lower the percentage the sweeter. Does differentiation in the quantity of cocoa in chocolate make any difference to its health benefits?
every morning Michael McDonald makes himself a protein shake the star ingredient is cocoa powder he says it’s good for the heart he should know he’s a cardiologist.
Munah Bagharib: What are the benefits of Cocoa powder?
Dr. Michael MacDonald: From the heart and cardiovascular system point of view there are benefits to lowering blood pressure, and reducing inflammation.
Munah Bagharib: How does it do all of that?
Dr. Michael MacDonald: There’s a group of compounds that are plant-based chemicals called polyphenols and Coco is rich in polyphenols they’re also present in tea and red wine.
But there’s way more in chocolate than in any other foodstuff.
These polyphenols can be broken down into something called flavonoids and we think that these flavonoids are the things that lead to benefits on the blood vessels and the inflammation.
There’s also a compound called theobromine which we know dilates blood vessels and that could partly be mediating the blood pressure effect.
Munah Bagharib: As a cardiologist do you tell your patients to eat chocolate daily?
Dr. Michael MacDonald: I don’t tend to tell them to eat chocolate daily the problem is that most chocolate is probably not that healthy and you’ve got to weigh up the benefits with the downsides so the benefits are potential improvements in things like blood pressure and inflammation.
But the downside is that most chocolates full of sugar and it’s full of fat so if you eat too much of it you’ll gain weight and then you completely negate the effects of the polyphenol compounds
Munah Bagharib: Is there a particular type of chocolate that you would recommend?
Dr. Michael MacDonald: Yeah so I think a kind of rule of thumb is the is to go for the highest percentage of cocoa this one here is 90% dark chocolate and this is the one I tend to eat some people would find it quite bitter yeah but a small square like this has got full of polyphenol compounds
But is sugar and fat the only thing we have to worry about in our chocolates?
I’ve been told that while eating chocolate is healthy you can’t just eat any type doctors recommend eating dark chocolate
But how much chocolate should we really be eating?
To get to the bottom of this Munah Bagharib has invited dietitian BB Chia for a cup of what else hot cocoa of course.
Munah Bagharib: So how much should I eat to get the full benefits?
BB Chia (Dietician): Well 72% cocoa dark chocolate and a 100-gram bar, so anything from 10 up to 50 g which is half a bar, and that’s proven by studies so we shouldn’t even bother eating anything less than70%
I think anything above 50% for those who like to start eating darker chocolate uh could be a good place to start uh but yes most of the studies do recommend 70% and anything above 70% would give you the health benefits you want but of course, you know with a 100% cocoa chocolate you’re getting more flavanols.
At the same time, it’s diabetic friendly it will have no sugar added in there and so I would say particularly for health benefits you might want to go for something 100%
Munah Bagharib: If it’s 100% is there anything we can pair it with to offset the bitterness?
BB Chia: Yes, I would recommend maybe having it with some dry fruits, raisins, or dates or mixing it with some nuts walnuts pistachios up to you, some people enjoy it with a bit of peanut butter some people enjoy it in a smoothie so there are many ways to enjoy a good bar of chocolate.
Munah Bagharib: So, I understand that dark chocolate comes with benefits for our cardiovascular system are there other benefits?
BB Chia: It has an impact on our gut microbiome so our gut microbiome consists of different organisms to help us digest food and produce short-chain fatty acids for our immunity etc. and this G bacteria actually ferments on the cocoa to produce good stuff for the body and so it increases the amount of that microbiome diversity if you have uh chocolate and last but not least it’s cognitive ability.
So, some studies have shown that the elderly who drink cocoa in a beverage daily improve their cognitive scores.
Munah Bagharib: Is there anything else we should look out for apart from just high Coco content?
BB Chia: Well, there is a difference between different types of Coco there’s Dutch cocoa and regular cocoa so Dutch cocoa is less bitter the process makes it less bitter but it also reduces the flavanol content which means that you may not get all the benefits of flavanol if you take a bar chocolate that’s made with Dutch cocoa.
It’s hard to tell from the label so you might want to ask the manufacturer or even ask your chocolate here if this is touched cocoa or not.
But that’s not all that consumers should look out for when it comes to dark chocolate
There could be something else that isn’t found in the ingredients list in fact it’s something a talking point viewer pointed.
I read online that most dark chocolate dark chocolate will have some heavy matters in it and leave me concerned about whether it’s healthy to eat dark chocolate or chocolate as a whole because I really eat it every day.
Dangerous Heavy Metals in Dark Chocolate
In 2023 an investigation by an American nonprofit company consumer reports found traces of dangerous heavy metals in dark chocolate namely lead and cadmium.
Munah Bagharib: so we are going to put some dark chocolate bars to the test to find out if the ones sold in Singapore have traces of cadmium and lead in them I’m sending in 17 bars of dark chocolates some found in the supermarkets.
Some artisanal brands all ranging from 70% to 100% heavy metals typically have a high degree of toxicity and are usually found deep in the earth’s crust.
Why would these delicious Mosel have heavy metal in them?
So, Munah Bagharib reached out to a toxicologist
Dr. Henry Leung (Sr. Specialist, School of Applied Sciences, Nanyang Polytechnic)
It’s due to aquaculture the growing phase of the coconut on the nuts itself but not during the process of manufacturing it this contamination could be to water during the farming stage soil and other environmental contaminations during the agriculture phase so it’s where the heavy Meadows get into the Chate beans.
Munah Bagharib: What is the risk of having the presence of heavy metals in chocolate
Dr. Henry Leung: Out of all the heavy metals cadmium is the one that will pose the most threat to us it will impact bone density some patients will have kidney damage but the most common cadmium is carcinogenic it will cause mutations so that’s why uh out of all the heavy metals cadmium are the one that is heavily regulated.
so how much chocolate would we have to eat to be at risk of this?
Singapore’s higher standard of 0.5 PPM is the SFA standard you can eat up to about 1 kilogram of chocolate per week and it will not have any impact on you
Munah Bagharib: So, what if I eat above 1 kilogram a week?
Dr. Henry Leung: That’s a lot of chocolate at about 10 kg of chocolates you might have a little bit of health impact such as loss in bone density and kidney toxicities from cadmium.
It’s time I see how concerned we should be about dark chocolate.
We tested for different kinds of heavy metals in our chocolate products.
Munah Bagharib: What did the lab results show?
Dark chocolate has made a name for itself as being the healthier choice among chocolate varieties but I’m about to find out if there are other things in dark chocolate that we should be worried about name namely the presence of dangerous heavy metals
Kelvin Goh (Sr. Technical Officer, Setsco Services) lab results show for lab and cadmium we found a significant amount of metals in the higher Coco M samples namely the 95% and the 100%cocoa.
Munah Bagharib: Is it fair to say that the chocolates with higher amounts of cocoa have higher amounts of heavy metals in them?
Kelvin Goh: We did find that the content of metals tends to Trend towards the higher Coco masses so at the higher percentages namely the 95% we did find an increased amount of these metals mainly because more Coco is used in these products as compared to the ones say 70% and below.
Cadmium can be found in soil and it can enter the cacao plant when The Roots come into to contact with it.
Then invariably ends up in the center of the cacao beans the amount of cadmium depends on farming practices
The Singapore Food Agency or SFA does not allow the sale of cocoa products that have more than 0.5 PPM or parts per million of cadmium.
Of the 17 dark chocolate bars we sent in 15 contained less than 0.30 PP PM of cadmium whereas two of the 95% and 100% dark chocolate contained 0.34 and 0.33 PPM respectively.
So by SFA standards, these are safe levels.
The results show that there are heavy metals present in dark chocolates but not to a significant level the chocolates with the most amount of heavy metals like cadmium were found in the 95to 100% chocolates
but if you still want to play it safe then it’s down to makings sure that we find dark chocolate sauce from safe cacao beans.
with about a third of its products under the dark chocolate range for chocolate customers were concerned following news reports of heavy metal contamination which is why this local chocolate here makes it a point to put their chocolates through stringent tests.
Conclusion
I guess what better way to reward ourselves than with a piece of chocolate to good heart health.
Source: CNA Insider