Valentine's Day's special food - chocolate, chocolate is high in calories! What are the benefits of chocolate itself? What flavor of chocolate is healthy and delicious? Is the hot cocoa that I love to drink in winter chocolate itself? ~ Let's ask our expert - Formosa Biomedical i-Medical Health Clinic nutritionist Lin Zhiyi to answer our questions~
❐ How to choose chocolate?
Priority for choosing chocolate:

Pure dark chocolate: dark chocolate with a higher cocoa butter content
Chocolate with nuts: add almonds, hazelnuts and other nuts
Chocolate with natural dried fruits (pay attention to the sugar content): you can take in extra dried fruit fiber.
Milk chocolate: chocolate with added milk powder may have a higher sugar content and be sweeter.
White chocolate: added milk powder, oil (trans fat), not real milk.
The less bitter or bitter it tastes like chocolate, the lower its cocoa butter content is. Its oil comes from palm oil or coconut oil, which are relatively bad oils.
❐ Is chocolate a healthy food?
Cocoa butter ingredients: The main raw material of chocolate is cocoa butter, which comes from cocoa beans after layers of processing. Cocoa butter is rich in B vitamins, vitamin E, cocoa polyphenols, and flavonoids, which are helpful for cardiovascular health.
Chocolate is helpful for health: especially for the health of the cardiovascular system, and it also has anti-free radical and antioxidant functions.
Additives make chocolate unhealthy: Chocolate will later be defined as a seemingly unhealthy food because everyone likes to eat sweet taste, so additives will be added to it, such as palm oil and coconut oil, to make it less hard and bitter, and increase its taste. Another additive is sugar, because cocoa butter does not taste sweet, it is a fat, and it has a little bitter taste besides no sweetness.
Choose healthy chocolate: So when we choose, we recommend that you choose chocolate with a cocoa butter content of more than 80%, which may taste a little astringent.
Cocoa butter substitute is artificially added, not natural cocoa butter: In addition, you can also look at the nutrition label on the outer packaging. Is it cocoa butter or cocoa butter substitute? The two are different cocoa butters. Substitute means sugar substitute, which means it is not natural cocoa butter, because the extraction of natural cocoa butter is actually very laborious and the cost is relatively high. Since the technology is very mature now, some chocolates are replaced with cocoa butter substitute. Cocoa butter substitute is artificially added, so it is not natural cocoa butter. It is a substance produced by artificial adjustment of ingredients. So you can look at the nutrition label on the outer packaging. If it is cocoa butter substitute, it may be cheaper, but the effect of this kind of chocolate is not so good.
Palm oil, coconut oil: You can also see that if the content of palm oil and coconut oil is relatively high, patients with cardiovascular problems, such as high blood lipids, high blood sugar, etc., should pay special attention.
Sugar is the culprit of unhealthy chocolate: the lower the sugar content, the healthier the chocolate.
Will eating chocolate with a high cocoa butter content make you fat? The main reason for obesity is sugar.

Recommend you to eat chocolate with nuts: There are many types of chocolate in the market, such as milk chocolate, white chocolate, chocolate with dried fruits, nuts, etc. It is recommended that you eat chocolate with nuts, such as almonds and hazelnuts.

❐ The specified ingredients of dark chocolate
The main thing to look at when choosing chocolate is the composition of cocoa butter. In 2011, the Ministry of Health and Welfare defined our definition of dark chocolate. The cocoa butter content of dark chocolate must reach more than 35%, pure cocoa butter must reach more than 18%, and additives other than cocoa butter must reach 15%. Only when this ratio is met can it be labeled as dark chocolate. If chocolate uses more than 5% of other vegetable oils, such as coconut oil and palm oil, it must be labeled as cocoa butter substitute.
❐ Hot cocoa and chocolate have different ingredients
The ingredients of liquid hot cocoa and solid chocolate are actually different. The ingredients of hot cocoa are cocoa powder, milk powder, and sugar, but there is almost no cocoa butter in it. Cocoa powder is extracted from cocoa beans. After drying, the oil content of cocoa butter is almost gone. So drinking hot cocoa is more likely to make you fat, because its main ingredients are sugar and creamer. It has a slight taste of cocoa and chocolate, and these tastes mainly come from milk powder and sugar.

In addition to taking into account the taste, we must also take into account the ingredients. At the same time, we remind some special groups, such as those with high blood sugar, obesity, overweight, or those who are implementing weight control, to remember to pay special attention to the sugar content of chocolate and follow the principle of tasting only. More importantly, after eating chocolate or sugary things, you must remember to brush your teeth.

Categories: health