Is Dark Chocolate Good for Your Health? It's Complicated

Chocolate Health Benefits

Though most of the confirmed benefits are relatively modest, research shows chocolate may:

• Prevent or control obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and high cholesterol.
• lower the risk of stroke and some cancers,
• improve athletic performance,
• protect brain function and slow declines in cognitive function,
• help protect the skin from sun damage and
• exert a positive influence on fetal growth and development.

Now, there’s some healthy-eating news most of us can get behind! But it’s complicated.

How Chocolate is Made

Chocolate comes from the seeds of the cacao plant (Theobroma cacao), a small tree native to the tropics of Central and South America. The seeds look a lot like coffee beans.

Researchers who study cacao suggest that two classes of plant compounds especially abundant in chocolate—flavanols and methylxanthines—may be responsible for many of chocolate’s health benefits.

After being separated from the husks, fresh cocoa beans are fermented as their pulp drains away. The fermented beans are generally air dried, and lightly roasted, and then move on to various forms of processing. They’re often chopped into crumbly chunks called nibs, the least-processed form of chocolate, containing the highest concentrations of healthful plant compounds.

Most commercial chocolate is made by grinding the beans into an oily paste that’s melted into what’s called chocolate liquor. When cooled and molded, the liquor becomes raw chocolate.

About half the chocolate liquor is the edible fat, known as cocoa butter, which is often blended into to chocolate bars to increase the creaminess, or used in skin-care products. Separated from the oil, dried, and ground, the resulting brown-colored solids become what we know as unsweetened cocoa powder. The solids contain most of the nutrients and beneficial plant compounds, and give chocolate products their brown color and chocolate-y flavor.

Types of Chocolate

Like most food industries, the chocolate business has a unique jargon. Apart from the jargon, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does have some standard definitions of chocolate products that you might find useful:

• Dark chocolate is a chocolate product containing a high percentage of cocoa solids, typically 70 percent or more, though there’s no legal definition in the U.S.
• Bittersweet chocolate contains at least 35 percent pure chocolate with some amount of added sweetener and cocoa butter.
• Semisweet chocolate products also must contain at least 35 percent cocoa solids but typically contain around 50 percent sugar.
• Milk chocolate is a product containing at least 10 percent cocoa solids and at least 12 percent milk (liquid milk, milk powder, cream, or condensed milk) plus cocoa butter and sweetener in varying amounts.
• White chocolate, with its creamy texture and mild taste, contains cocoa butter, milk, and sugar. It lacks cocoa solids, hence the white color.

In theory, the darker the chocolate, the higher the concentration of cocoa.

That said, researchers have discovered that even the dark and extra-dark chocolate bars (containing 70 percent to 90 percent cocoa) recommended for health benefits can differ significantly in the amount of flavanols and other beneficial compounds they contain.

That’s partly because the cacao compounds identified as good for you are also extremely bitter, so the cocoa processed for your yummy chocolate bar may have had most of them stripped out. Also, variations in the cocoa beans themselves and in the fermentation process separating the beans from the pulp may further reduce the beneficial compounds.

In other words, your expensive treat may contain a high percentage of cocoa but not enough cocoa phytocompounds to deliver the promised benefits.

Although some chocolate companies have begun to offer products with a high-flavanol guarantee, many people looking for the health benefits of chocolate prefer to munch on unrefined cocoa nibs.

Conclusion: Go for 70% Cacao & Nibs

• Eat dark chocolate that’s at least 70 percent cacao several times a week to achieve its health benefits. Select your brand wisely so as to keep your cadmium, lead, and sugar low while maximizing the antioxidant and flavonol benefits.
• Or nibble on nibs. Nibs can be dry and bitter—hardly the chocolate lover’s dream of that sweet, creamy goodness of a standard “chocolate bar,” so some people sprinkle their cocoa nibs on their morning oatmeal or add them to smoothies, granola or trail mix, whose other ingredients help balance the bitterness.

Caution

Don’t overindulge! Chocolate is high in calories. You need to have a healthy relationship with chocolate and enjoy it in moderation. Don’t treat chocolate as a guilty pleasure because a little dark chocolate is a positive thing, but also, don’t sit in front of the TV snacking on chocolate candies.

Also, chocolate contains significant amounts of the stimulants caffeine and theobromine. If you’re staying away from coffee and other caffeine-containing products, go lightly on the chocolate, too.

A 2022 study conducted by Consumer Reports found that some dark chocolate bars contain the heavy metals cadmium and lead. Researchers noted that cacao plants take up cadmium from the soil, with the metal accumulating in the beans as the tree grows. Lead appears to accumulate on the beans after harvest, the result of lead-filled dust and dirt getting on the beans during the drying process. 

Consistent, long-term exposure to even small amounts of heavy metals can lead to a variety of health problems. Researchers noted that heavy metals are also present in certain other foods that are important to eat as part of a healthy diet, such as carrots, sweet potatoes, and spinach. The research suggests limiting dark chocolate consumption to a single ounce just a few days a week, which is unlikely to cause immediate harm.

Important. Keep your chocolate treats and nibs away from family pets, especially dogs. The theobromine in chocolate is toxic and can be fatal to dogs. Theobromine is ten times more concentrated in dark chocolate than milk chocolate.

If you have a dog, don’t even mulch your plants with that attractive, sweet-smelling cocoa-shell mulch unless you choose a brand that’s theobromine-free. Fortunately, most dogs don’t eat cocoa shells, but those few who do may suffer adverse reactions.