Big surprise: chocolate is not a health food

Oh dear. Chocolate is heavily hyped as a health food these days, but a new study says it doesn’t do much when compared to a placebo and has no measurable benefits for neuropsychological or heart health. Too bad. I haven’t seen the full study yet but I’ll bet it wasn’t sponsored by Mars. No matter. I’ll take chocolate over a placebo any time.

Here’s one explanation for these results: the flavonols are destroyed in the process of making cocoa.   So just because a chocolate is high in cocoa, doesn’t mean it retains active components.