I just caught the tail end of a report on the radio this morning about yet another benefit of chocolate – apparently it can cut the rate of stroke in women. (See the report in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.) By the time I logged in the kill-joy reporter was saying that of course chocolate also contained lots of fat and sugar which increased the likelihood of stroke so we should not take this research as license to pig out. However, it did ring lots of memory bells…. How often over the last few years have we been told that chocolate is the answer to all out woes?
So I just thought I would have a little browse through the FoodsMatter site, without venturing any further afield, and this is what I came up with:
April 2012 – A serving a day of dark chocolate might keep the doctor away
October 2010 – A blog citing a research from the Johns Hopkins Medical School also recommending chocolate to stroke patients.
February 2010 – Great Chocolate news – it can reduce your stress levels while warding off Alzheimer’s and heart attack. Bring it on…
September 2009 – Chocolate for migraine?
July 2008 – Chocolate for CFS
(Just picked up yet another – Systematic review in the Cochrane Library, 15 August 2012, suggests that flavanols found in dark chocolate reduce blood pressure and therefore the risk of stroke and heart attack.)
The same question asked of Google would no doubt have produced enough reports to fill the British Library! But the especially chuffing thing about all of these reports, from a freefrom-er’s or a dairy-intolerant’s perspective, is that it is dark chocolate that you need to eat – milk chocolate will do you no good at all!
Anyhow, in a shameless effort to plug our new freefrom directories, you might want to check out what freefrom chocolates you could use to improve your stress levels, migraine, CFS and reduce your likelihood of having a stroke here – and if you are nut allergic, you might want to check here.
And….. Advance notice. I saw Stephen and Barbara Burgess of D&D Chocolates at the weekend and they tell me that their new website will be going live very soon, complete with a delicious range of new Christmas totally freefrom choccies and carobs – including some really lovely little mint filled snowmen! I got a taste….
I feel better now for having had a raw chocolate pecan brownie with berries for breakfast this morning! My favourite retort when someone questions my choice of choccie breakfast is to tell them raw chocolate has the highest antioxidant ORAC score of any food, so there… I knocked it out as a legume for 5 months to help my gut heal on the truly gluten free barrier repair plan and had it for the first time again this week. Absolute flippin bliss. Hence having it for brekkie. Yum.
Oh yum, yum, yum……Sounds wonderful – think how many other bits of you are going to feel better as a result!!! Your recipe? Maybe we can ask you to do a ‘guests spot’ on FreeFrom Recipes Matter with some of your truly gf recipes?……
Oh gawd, I made it up and never wrote it down! Of course I’ll do a guest spot for you, just tell me when and what you need.
If you can make that one up – I am sure you can make up lots more!!!! Excellent – be in touch about guest spot.