There are those who know that it is fatty and sweet, therefore high in calories. And there are others who cannot do without it. There are arguments to support these two opposing views. You will understand what intellectual dishonesty can mean in nutrition today. Your turn to judge !
Japanese researchers say they have found the neurons responsible for the craving for chocolate, by activating certain neurons in mice that have become obese. Why not ! But from there to evoking a solution against obesity, the shortcut is a little quick and will make smile the true specialists of this food – very studied because very complex in its effects.
Chocolate for!
It is a separate food. It is moreover difficult to find a similar one which crosses, with so much happiness, the food history of the men. From the Mayan Indians to our television screens, it never ceases to have its defenders. Because, from a strictly dietary point of view, we cannot find all the virtues in it. Sugar, fat in abundance, in short, anything that makes you fat. So not really of great nutritional value. However, you will find doctors everywhere to defend him.
First the psychiatrists. Much has been said about the virtues of chocolate in nervous breakdowns. The chemists found in his analysis several substances: phenyl ethylamine, tyranny; complicated names which are in fact products close to amphetamines, of which we know the exciting role. There is also serotonin, which is prescribed for depression. Finally, another compound close to cannabis and a last substance that suppresses the appetite, which can make chocolate – if it was not so rich – an excellent diet food. While we are well aware of the isolated effect of all these products, we do not know much about their role when they are combined. Thus, if we mix an antidepressant, an stimulant, an appetite suppressant … We get chocolate … In no case a well-defined drug.
The aphrodisiac virtues of chocolate
The sexologists were interested in the product by claiming that its aphrodisiac virtues – inseparable from its history to the point that it was officially condemned in the past by the Church – also find their explanation in phenyl ethylamine. This substance, injected into a laboratory rat, triggers copulatory behavior in it! The experiments stopped – at least in the laboratory – in the rat… It remains to define the quantity necessary to obtain the same effect in humans.
Good source of magnesium, which does not spoil anything, chocolate is especially trying to gain true letters of nobility by taking the route, extremely fashionable, of antioxidant products which are supposed to fight against a whole series of cancers. , and above all, slow down our aging.
All this information is certainly very serious and referenced by a whole battery of researchers. However, they are provided to the medical world by the national union chamber of chocolate makers, which should encourage a certain caution, in particular among fat people or diabetics because, remember, chocolate is above all fatty and sweet, therefore particularly rich. . However, even if the scientific explanations are tempting, it is certainly in the pleasure of the taste buds that the worldwide and permanent success of this food, including Brillat-Savarin, which is to cooking what Fleming is to antibiotics, said: “Happy chocolate which, after having run the world through the smiles of women, finds death in a tasty and melting kiss of their mouth”.
Chocolate against!
Not just for taste, but because too much chocolate is not good for you. This goes without saying for all doctors, in particular for nutritionists who fight daily against excess calories, or for cardiologists who see the consequences of the obstruction of our arteries by clumps of fat every day. Evidence that we hope will be shared by all those who present a risk. However, there is a “health communication” temptation for the chocolate lobby: first “scientific” studies to convince us that “eating chocolate would be good for the heart”. In the category of dangerous information, there had already been the famous “vitamin butter” of milk producers … A scientific truth as intelligent as: “if a fly disturbs you on the forehead, kill it with a big blow of the hammer” . It is true that we kill the fly, but the consequences of the gesture are quite different!
Even if the economy of our world is in panic and if the freedom to inform is essential, we must warn the public against the health arguments which are becoming, every day, a little more major selling points. For example, with chocolate that makes you lose weight, you cross the red line again. Of course, gentlemen chocolate makers, your researchers may have shown that a cocoa-based drink decreases platelet activation and aggregation, in proportions that are infinitely less effective, moreover, than a few milligrams of aspirin. ‘we give in the prevention of cardiovascular disease.
Certainly, you have leads on the antioxidant properties of your product, the anti-oxidation, this cream pie – I should say “chocolate mousse” – recurrent in the fight against aging. But you should add that there are as many calories in 100 grams of chocolate as in 350 grams of appetizer peanuts, which are already very fatty, or as in 700 grams of fish, or six eggs, or six slices of ham or still a kilo and a half of fruit. In short, chocolate is 40% sugar, 30% fat, and not the best.
In conclusion, far from me the idea of depriving yourself of the taste pleasure of the food if you really want it, but know that it is only a pleasure and in no way a therapeutic gesture.
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