Is Chocolate Really Bad For Your Health?

There is some confusion at the moment as many people are not sure of the answer to the question is chocolate bad for your health. We all know that it contains refined sugars, waxes, fillers, which will increase your calorie intake, and could make not only gain weight, but have big mood swings from the sugar. Often chocolate has caffeine added to it which can affect your system, and make you even more stressed out. It also is the food which has the highest caloric value for its weight, so anyone with bodyweight issues, and even diabetics should not consume it.

However, there have recently been reports about the health benefits of cocoa, and so people are realizing that perhaps it is not as bad as reported. It has been found that cocoa, in its raw form has many proven health benefits, so if you find the right kind of unprocessed raw cocoa, you can eat it daily as a functional food and see things like lowering of blood pressure; weight loss as it is an appetite suppressant; reduction in pain as it is an anti-inflammatory; mood stabilizer; it's even good for your teeth!

However, if it is eaten in the form of chocolate that most people it, you will not get any of these benefits, and actually you'll get the opposite reaction. Avoid the bars which have a low cocoa content, and lots of additives, fats, sugars and things like that. These are likely to have so many bad properties that they will outweigh any good that the cocoa is providing. It is much better to try, as hard as you can, to have chocolate which has a high cocoa content and preferably raw and unprocessed cocoa so it retains as many of its natural properties (antioxidants) as possible. And, there is a chocolate out there that is this exact kind and it tastes really good.

Since this is more of a functional food (supplement) and not candy, it will be more expensive, but the payoff is worth it. So when considering is chocolate bad for your health the answer is really what kind of chocolate you are consuming. If it's from the store shelf, it is most likely not good for you.