My wife and I love chocolate. While we do not eat something chocolate every day, we probably do most days. We tend to purchase chocolate bars rather than truffles. Because our local stores stock such a wide variety of chocolates, we have hosted many gatherings at our house that culminate with a blind chocolate bar tasting. Over the years we have noticed a trend. When we first started tasting chocolates, most guests preferred to taste the milk chocolate bars rather than the dark chocolate bars.
Over the past two years however, we have found that our guests have preferred to taste the dark chocolate. For those who do not eat chocolate every day, milk chocolate is sweeter than dark, has milk solids added, and contains roughly between 25% and 35% cocoa solids-the nonfat part of a cocoa bean. Dark chocolate contains no milk solids and may contain up to 80% cocoa solids. White chocolate really isn’t chocolate at all as it contains no cocoa solids. While I like the taste and complexity of dark chocolate, it turns out there may be a variety of health benefits to consuming dark chocolate each day.
As reported in The New York Times, consumption of 40 grams of dark chocolate a day, about 1.5 squares of a standard bar, can improve exercise performance. Researchers have long surmised that epicatechin, a molecule found in cocoa solids, is the key ingredient that might be beneficial to humans. Dark chocolate, because of its higher percentage of cocoa solids, has more epicatechin than milk chocolate. In a recently published trial, researchers had adult cyclists eat 40 grams of dark chocolate or white chocolate a day for two weeks and measured exercise performance before and after the intervention.
The groups then switched and the measurements repeated. Interestingly, the cyclists consuming the dark chocolate performed better than at baseline and those who had been consuming the white chocolate. The difference were consistent but modest: cyclists traveled about .1 miles more during a two minute time trial. While I look at this as justification for my chocolate habit, one should note that the cyclists only had a small amount of chocolate; the optimal dose of chocolate is not known: chocolate bars have variable amounts of epicatechin; and the exact mechanism of action is not known. Regardless, I will happily purchase more dark chocolate bars, not only for their taste but for possible better cycling performance.
