Dark chocolate is good for you — that's no lie

SANDY — While browsing the many wares at the Utah Chocolate Show (held at the South Towne Expo Center a couple of weeks ago), I found a booth where chocolate was considered a health supplement rather than a sweet indulgence.

A company called Xocai (pronounced Sho-sigh) gave out free samples of nuggets made from dark, unprocessed cocoa powder and acai, a purple berry found in South America. There were brochures that claimed this product helps with everything from weight loss, to lowering blood pressure and cholesterol, to preventing dental cavities.

I'd heard the same things a couple of months ago during a phone call with Thurl Bailey, the former Jazz basketball player. He told me he had become an independent distributor of Xocai, "because I think they've really stumbled onto something here."

"Since I've been an athlete I've always been pretty much into health things that could extend my career," Bailey said. "Early in my career my trainers started using dark chocolate to help me gain weight and for its antioxidant benefits. And after I retired six years ago I even became more health conscious, because I have a family who depends on me to be around."

As a journalist, I tend to greet all health claims with a dose of skepticism. But in the past few years researchers have added more credence, at least in part, to the chocolate-health connection.

Last week, researchers from Johns Hopkins University reported that chocolate thins blood and protects the heart in the same way as aspirin. According to a Los Angeles Times article, epidemiologist Diane Becker told the American Heart Association that a compound in chocolate called flavonol slows down platelet clumping that can block off blood vessels and lead to a heart attack or stroke.

Her study was funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. However, she added, you would have to eat at least a couple of tablespoons of dark chocolate a day to see some benefit — and it's still not as effective as a single baby aspirin, which is usually prescribed to heart patients.

According to "The Nutrition Bible," an ounce of semisweet chocolate is about 144 calories and 10 grams of fat, so trying to match the effects of aspirin with chocolate could make quite a dent in your diet.

"I would never tell people to go ahead and eat chocolate, because chocolate travels with a lot of friends, like fat and sugar," Becker said in the Los Angeles Times article.

The amount of flavonoids in a chocolate bar or a cup of hot cocoa depends in part on how the finished products are processed. In most of the studies I've seen, dark chocolate is the health hero, rather than the sweeter, milder milk chocolate.