The health claims may be bogus, but this is STILL good news.
CNN’s report on CocoVia from Mars Masterfoods is full of waffling about whether or not touting the health benefits of the flavonols in dark chocolate is wise. Me, I could care less. As long as more dark chocolate is AVAILABLE, I’m happy. If chocolate makers have to lie to fat Americans and tell us it’s health-food in order to get more dark chocolate on the shelves, so be it.
Because, hey… more dark chocolate on the shelves.
–Howard
Called CocoaVia, the products are made with a kind of dark chocolate high in flavanols, an antioxidant found in cocoa beans that is thought to have a blood-thinning effect similar to aspirin and may even lower blood pressure. The snacks also are enriched with vitamins and injected with cholesterol-lowering plant sterols from soy.
Okay, ew. Injecting vitamins and such into the chocolate? I’ll stick with my 70% and 80% dark chocolates, thanks, and leave the vitamins in the jar that I always forget about in the medicine cabinet.
I do admit, though, that it does make me crave the dark organic chocolate at the cafe we started going to. Mmm… might have to swing by there today.
I’m with you. Mmm, dark chocolate.
Yay, dark chocolate! Also, in the interest of pseudo-science, how do you feel about the taste of Ny-Quil?
Hmmm, chocolate. Hmm, theobromine and caffeine!
Dark chocolate, and Hershey’s Semi-sweet Special Dark Chocolate in particular, is the elixir of life. The really great news is that no one is trying to tell us it causes cancer.
Personally, I love dark chocolate. I think the problem HERE is not that it’s not ‘better’ for you than Milk Chocolate, but that they’ll eventually get sued by some morons who’ll end up eating three bars of this stuff each day, expecting it’ll ‘fix’ their problems even as they don’t exercise and load up on the heart-stopping cholesterol-laden foods, and then wonder why the CocoaVia didn’t work.
In other words, they’ll treat it like medicine than food which has some health benefits… but which won’t cure problems with their lifestyles. Still, the comment that it tastes good is encouraging… I may try it then to see what it’s like.
amen. My GF loves peas, and dislikes dark chocolate; I dislike peas and love dark chocolate. I have given her my lifetime share of peas, she has given me her lifetime share of dark chocolate.
I sincerely believe that I’m getting the better end of the deal. But then, the same is true for the concept of her dating me, so… there you go. 😀
I’m all for dark chocolate, but paying extra for chocolate with vitamins and stuff in it strikes me a silly. That’s the thing I noticed there. $1 for a bar which is, I presume, the same size as the kind you get for $0.50 or so normally. They’ve doubled the price, wihout adding anything that’s any more attractive to me. If I’m going to pay $1 for a little bar of chocolate, I’ll go spring for a Godiva’s, not Mars or Hershy.
I’m with you. ‘Cause I don’t eat chocolate to be healthier; that’s what exercise and drinking enough water and getting enough sleep are for. I eat chocolate to feel better, kind of like when I occasionally eat a nice big fatty steak. Sure, it’s got plenty of things that are “nutritional” to it, but I’m eating because I like it, not because it’ll somehow mysteriously add a day or two to my life expectancy.
That would just be silly; I could get hit by a bus an hour from how. But I’d still feel good from having had that bar of chocolate. ;D
Yeah If you gotta go, make sure you have chocolate on your tastebuds. (At least, that’s what I heard you say.)
You have summed up with exquisite succinctness.
*shrug* It’s a gift.
Man. What’s wrong with good old ordinary 99%?
Tsk. This is just.. wrong.. somehow. Like those calcium chews you can get that are like little chewy chocolate bars.
Chocolate is supposed to be a decadent pleasure, particularly the good stuff (i.e. Dark Chocolate). How can you feel decadent and a wee bit guilty if the stuff is bloody good for you? bah.
Amen!
Howard said “waffling” and “dark chocolate” in the same sentence… I got dizzy.
Having once done nothing but study chocolate for an entire month (oh the advantages of a liberal arts education) I can say that it is quite true that the anti-oxidants in chocolate are very effective. It also boosts seretonin (making you happy and sleepy, like turkey) and suprisingly doesn’t have that much caffeine, although theobromine and theothaline (related alkaloids also found in coffee and tea) may have other circulatory benifits as well. So I’d say even without shat they but in it a bit of chocolate a day can’t be that bad for you.