DARK NOT A LARK: WHY DARK CHOCOLATE IS GOOD FOR YOU

The blog Penguin Food has a fun article about "Three bad foods that are really good" (love that title). Here is what they say about dark chocolate:

"Eating a small amount of dark chocolate every day could be good for you... A study has found that a regular 2oz dose can lower blood pressure and reduce the risk of having a heart attack or stroke - without any weight gain."

Most of the post's dark-chocolate-good-news seems to be from a Daily Mail article, which says, among other things, that "Blood pressure lowered in this way could reduce the risk of death from a stroke by 8 per cent and from coronary artery disease by 5 per cent, the University of Cologne scientists found. It would also reduce risk of death generally by 4 per cent. A daily diet of a little chocolate had the same effect as more complicated diets designed to lower blood pressure, according to the authors of the study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. 'Although the magnitude of the blood pressure reduction was small, the effects are clinically noteworthy,' they said. 'Adoption of small amounts of flavanol-rich cocoa into the habitual diet is a dietary modification that is easy to adhere to, and therefore may be a promising behavioural approach to lower blood pressure in individuals with above-optimal blood pressure.'

The Penguin Blog post continues with some tongue-in-cheeky observations:

Of course 'they' try to spoil the fun and emphasise that we can only eat a little bit of chocolate, and besides, fruit and vegetables are better for you - but they forget the little point that fruit and vegetables dont taste as nice as chocolate. Chocolate makes you feel better. If you feel better - you are more relaxed, and therefore your heart is more relaxed and beats more comfortably. You could eat more fruit, but your added miserability will increase the pressure on your heart anyway."

To read the full blog post (you want to know what their OTHER TWO "bad/good" foods are, right?), go to: http://penguin-food.blogspot.com/2007/07/three-bad-foods-that-are-really-good.html (the post seems to be authored by a bloke named Graham, the man behind the Penguin Food blog, and this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 UK: England & Wales License).