Six Rules for Choosing Healthy Chocolate

colinchamp October 24, 2018 7 Comments

As a health nut and low-carb advocate, and strong proponent of bitter foods to maximize my health and help prevent cancer, I turn to chocolate as my number one dessert. If selected properly, dark chocolate provides a plethora of health benefits, including a handful of healthy fat with very little sugar. Most importantly, it provides a bunch of chemicals, like phenols and flavonoids. These chemicals are perceived as a threat to our cells, prompting them to increase antioxidant production and reduce our risk of cancer,¹ while leaving them more sensitive to insulin (and us with a lower blood sugar).² They can also improve our blood vessel and heart function,³ and, much like when we eat bitter and cruciferous vegetables, stimulate our detoxification mechanisms to rid the body of dangerous chemicals.

Yet, with an explosion of organic, natural, direct trade, fair trade, [inset catchy name here] chocolate, it’s hard to keep up. These are the six rules that I use for choosing the healthiest dark chocolate available.

Healthy Chocolate Rule 1: Pick a chocolate that uses cacao beans or raw cacao powder

People will tell you chocolate has many antioxidants. Realistically the benefit is from phenols and other chemicals that, in actuality, act in the opposite way. These “toxic” chemicals stimulate your body’s internal production of free-radical fighting antioxidants. They also increase in cellular detoxification, which gets the garbage out of our cells and body. These chemicals are perceived as a toxin, and, much like those in garlic, wasabi, and cruciferous vegetables, they snap our cells into defense mode, improving their ability to help fight infections and cancer. Finally, these chemicals bind to our cells, activating mechanisms that can decrease inflammation and block cancer formation.^4,5

Healthy Chocolate Rule 2: Maximize the ratio of fat and fiber to sugar:

Aim for the lowest possible sugar content with the highest amount of fat. Furthermore, aim for higher fiber as part of the carbohydrate component. The fat in dark chocolate is equal parts palmitic, stearic, and oleic acid (oleic is the fat in olive oil that gets most of the credit nowadays). If you have been living in a cave for the past decade and still think fat is bad for you, have no fear as a higher fat and lower carbohydrate diet has been shown dozens of times to be superior in terms of maintaining a healthy weight.⁶ Finally, the fiber in dark chocolate is soluble fiber, which is broken down and fermented by our bowel bacteria into the healthy anticancer fat known as CLA (conjugated linoleic acid).

Healthy Chocolate Rule 3: Maximize the dark chocolate percentage:

The benefits of dark chocolate come from the dark chocolate, not the added sugar or other ingredients. The more actual dark chocolate inside, the more of those chemicals listed above that you will be receiving, along with more healthy fat and less sugar. I try to keep it above 75%.

Healthy Chocolate Rule 4: Avoid soy lecithin?

That one oddball ingredient often seen in dark chocolate is soy lecithin. While that first dirty s-word signifies danger to most educated consumers, is soy lecithin really that bad? Lecithin is a thick substance often derived from soybeans and sometimes eggs. This thickness is key, as it is used to emulsify the chocolate and stabilize it, ultimately improving its self-life. The latter may turn on your processed food alarm. It is also a cheap substance, which, like all cheap ingredients, is a large part of why it is used so often. Much like Crisco and most seed oils out there, it is a waste product.

But doc, will it kill me? Soy lecithin is unlikely to kill you, unless you have some bizarre allergy, or slip on it like the banana peel that sent the O’Doyles station wagon over the cliff in Billy Madison. I am not a fan of soy lecithin (or soy anything) and try to avoid it, but I don’t hate it. It is like a friend’s annoying partner. I would not want to hang out with her, but if she is there occasionally, I can deal with her. Instead, I do, however, try to maximize alone time with my buddy when she’s not around.

Soy lecithin is as unhealthy as seed oils, especially because it is used in small doses, but avoiding is better safe than sorry. I instead opt for those real dark chocolate bars like Taza that avoid soy lecithin but provide a gritty feel to their chocolate texture that reminds me I am eating a product from cacao beans and not some overly smooth chemical concoction.

Healthy Chocolate Rule 5: Choose chocolate with the least ingredients

Dark chocolate is certainly an art and science, but it is not rocket science. A hodgepodge of ingredients signals that there is a little more going on inside that chocolate bar than I would like. My homemade chocolate contains organic raw cacao powder, organic cacao butter, Himalayan Sea Salt, organic raw cacao nibs, grass-fed butter, and cayenne pepper. Back to Taza, their wicked dark bar, which tastes amazing for a 95% dark chocolate bar, uses two ingredients: organic cacao beans and only 2 g of organic cane sugar. (Note: I receive no money or sponsorship from Taza. I simply love their high-quality chocolate and their headquarters is not far from where I lived during college, so i am a little biased.) Furthermore, this lack of excess ingredients provides a bar with a whopping 14 g of fat, 8 grams of fiber, 5 g of protein, and only 2 g of sugar per serving.

Healthy Chocolate Rule 6: Quality over quantity

Like all foods, you want to aim for high quality when you pick a chocolate. This will raise the price a bit, but use that as a governor to stop you from over-indulging. In other words, if you have the choice of a $5 high quality bar made of the best ingredients, or the Costco special of 30 pounds of “dark” chocolate for $5, go for the good stuff.

We have been provided a healthy and delicious dessert in dark chocolate. Maximize its benefits to improve your overall health, train your body to enjoy bitter foods, and stress your cells to be better troops. Choosing a healthy dark chocolate is easy. Next time you are chocolate shopping, remember these six rules.

Healthy Chocolate References:

1. Moskaug JØ, Carlsen H, Myhrstad MC, Blomhoff R. Polyphenols and glutathione synthesis regulation. Am J Clin Nutr. 2005;81(1):277S-283S. doi:10.1093/ajcn/81.1.277s.
2. Grassi D, Desideri G, Mai F, et al. Cocoa, Glucose Tolerance, and Insulin Signaling: Cardiometabolic Protection. J Agric Food Chem. 2015;63(45):9919-9926. doi:10.1021/acs.jafc.5b00913.
3. Hooper L, Kay C, Abdelhamid A, et al. Effects of chocolate, cocoa, and flavan-3-ols on cardiovascular health: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized trials. Am J Clin Nutr. 2012;95(3):740-751. doi:10.3945/ajcn.111.023457.
4. Ding S, Jiang H, Fang J. Regulation of Immune Function by Polyphenols. J Immunol Res. 2018;2018:1-8. doi:10.1155/2018/1264074.
5. Cuevas A, Saavedra N, Salazar LA, Abdalla DSP. Modulation of immune function by polyphenols: possible contribution of epigenetic factors. Nutrients. 2013;5(7):2314-2332. doi:10.3390/nu5072314.
6. Hite AH, Berkowitz VG, Berkowitz K. Low-carbohydrate diet review: shifting the paradigm. Nutr Clin Pract. 2011;26(3):300-308. doi:10.1177/0884533611405791.

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