I am a shameless chocoholic.  I mean that quite literally. There is no shame in me.  I consume my chocolate openly and gleefully.

Chocolate has gotten a bad rap.  Poor little chocolate : (

Did you know dark chocolate has 8 times the antioxidants as strawberries?  No, betcha didn’t know that.  Think about it.  It comes from a plant.  It’s basically a dark vegetable. Ok, a highly processed vegetable.

Now everyone knows the emotional benefit of chocolate, but did you know chocolate is actually good for your heart?  I mean in the physical sense.  Oh yeah, baby!  A small bar of dark chocolate a day can lower your blood pressure and reduce your LDL (bad) cholesterol.  It helps stop clots and reduce the risk of heart attack.

But let’s not minimize those emotional benefits. Chocolate stimulates endorphin production, which gives a feeling of pleasure (see Mom, it may all be in my head but it’s not just all in my mind).  It also contains serotonin, which acts as an antidepressant (explains a lot doesn’t it?).

And yes… it can be fattening. But let’s take a better look at our choices.  A bar of plain dark chocolate or dark chocolate with nuts is going to have less bad fats (and yes there are some good fats) than milk chocolate and certainly less than anything with caramel or nougat or other types of fillings.

It’s my considered opinion that we should make chocolate the 5^th Food Group with an FDA Recommended Daily Allowance.  Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we were told to have a nice little bar of dark chocolate every day for our health?

Well, if the government won’t do it, I will! Eat your chocolate every day!