Many of us love chocolate and feel that life is not worth living without it.  But what if you knew that chocolate was healthy for you and that it is good for you to eat.  Well, it is!  Just like anything, you do need to eat it in moderation or else it is no longer healthy for you.  But here are the benefits you get from chocolate.

Flavonoids – This is a sub class of antioxidant which helps to lower your blood pressure as well as helping to protect with heart disease.   For this reason, chocolate manufacturers are being pressured to develop a method of processing the cocoa beans to preserve this content.  Current processes destroy up to three-quarters of the flavonoids

Fat – Unfortunately, you do need to remember that chocolate still contains a lot of fat.  Forty grams of dark chocolate can contain 210 calories as well as 13 grams of fat of which 8 grams are saturated fat.

Cocoa Powder – this product is a low fat item and can be a way to get your chocolate fix as well as some flavanols.  But as this is bitter on its own, the Mars Company has worked on making it more palatable by creating snack bars high in flavanols.   These were actually shown to lower cholesterol including the LDL levels which is the bad cholesterol.

Keep in mind, these benefits only tend to be found in dark chocolate – so you cannot eat milk chocolate or other types and hope to get these benefits from them.