Does Dark Chocolate Have Health Benefits?

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With Valentine’s Day (Chocolate Discount Day!) coming up, you might be wondering about the health benefits of dark chocolate or about what kinds to buy. Dark chocolate is one of those foods that’s been called a “superfood” on and off over the years. So what’s the deal? Is it really all that great?

What Is Chocolate?

To know why chocolate has health benefits, it’s important to know what it actually is. Chocolate starts off as cacao beans. These beans are fermented, dried, cleaned, and then roasted. After that, the shells are removed, and the resulting cacao nibs are ground, producing cocoa mass. Then, the cocoa mass is liquefied by heating and separated into its components: cocoa solids and cocoa butter. Mixing the two in varying proportions and adding other ingredients makes different kinds of chocolate, from white chocolate (no cocoa solids) to baking chocolate (up to 99% cocoa solids).

Dark Chocolate’s Health Benefits

So where do the health benefits of dark chocolate supposedly come from? It’s the cocoa solids. That’s why dark chocolate with high amounts of cocoa solids is the most talked about. Milk chocolate and white chocolate don’t have enough cocoa solids to have any real benefit at all.

Cocoa solids are rich in calcium, iron, potassium, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, and zinc, all of which are vital nutrients. They also contain some caffeine.

In addition, Cocoa solids contain high amounts of flavanols (don’t confuse them with flavonols, with an “o”), like catechin. Many of these compounds are natural antioxidants. Oxidation reactions, which are necessary for life, sometimes create “free radicals” (molecules that cause other unwanted oxidation reactions), which damage cells. In the process, they can create more free radicals, leading to chain reactions. Antioxidants stop these harmful chain reactions before they get too widespread.

Cocoa flavanols also seem to have other health benefits as well. However, finding out the health benefits of cocoa flavanols is an area of ongoing research. As of Jan 2019, most of these benefits were reported in low-quality studies (small sample size, short term, etc.), so you should take these findings with a HUGE grain of salt:

lower blood pressure
increased insulin sensitivity/reduced risk of diabetes
reduced inflammation
reduced risk of heart disease
improved cognition/memory

Unfortunately, chocolate (even dark chocolate) also contains a moderate amount of saturated fat. This combined with its unclear health benefits means you should eat it in moderation. If you don’t like the taste of dark chocolate or are worried about weight gain, you probably aren’t going to miss much if you don’t eat it.

Choosing the Right Kind of Dark Chocolate

Since the health benefits of dark chocolate come from the cocoa solids, you should just pick the kind with the most, right? Well, not quite. First, the higher the percentage, the more bitter the chocolate becomes. Unsweetened baking chocolate (99% cocoa solids) is very bitter and won’t make a satisfying snack at all. Second, not all chocolate is processed the same way. Some chocolate makers treat their chocolate with an alkalizing agent in a process called “Dutching”. They do this to reduce the acidity of the chocolate, giving it a milder flavor, and to improve its color. But this process also destroys most of the flavanols. If you see the phrase “chocolate treated with alkali” in the ingredients list, it means that the chocolate was Dutch-processed, and you should avoid it if want any of those flavanol health benefits.

So what’s the best kind to get? You should aim for a chocolate with 70% or higher cocoa solid content and make sure it doesn’t say “chocolate treated with alkali” in the ingredients. Some chocolate is also labeled “Fair-Trade”, which means that it was made at a fair wage and with the exclusion of child labor. This goes a long way in promoting sustainable chocolate.

Yue’s Recommendation

I personally recommend the 86% Intense Dark chocolate from Ghirardelli. It’s a very smooth chocolate that has a rich aroma, and it won’t break the bank either. But you have to eat it right to enjoy it. If you eat it quickly when it’s cold, you’ll think you just ate some slightly bitter wax. Instead, you should pair it with a hot drink that has a very mild flavor (I personally use hot green tea). This does two things: it warms your mouth so that the chocolate melts easier and unlocks the aroma of the chocolate, and it wets your tongue so that your taste buds are more sensitive. By drinking a bit of your hot drink of choice and then taking small bites while chewing slowly, you’ll experience the full taste of the chocolate.

Ghirardelli is also part of the Lindt & Sprüngli group, which promotes sustainable chocolate production at all steps of the process.