All we need is love and they say that love keeps us healthy. It is known that chocolate and love have a close relation. Both chocolate and love are sweet and healthy. But the question is, are all kind of chocolate healthy? And what are the differences between milk, white and dark chocolate?
Let’s start with the different ingredients that form each type of chocolate.
Chocolate is made from cocoa beans which is harvested, then ground up and liquefied to become liquor. The liquor is then processed into cocoa solids and cocoa butter. It is the cocoa solids that give the bitter taste of chocolate. The different combinations of the cocoa solids and cocoa butter with other ingredients give the multiple types. Dark chocolate has the highest percentage of cocoa solids and cocoa butter of all types. The other added ingredients are sugar and cocoa bean powder. Milk chocolate contains milk powder, sugar, and a small percentage of cocoa solids and cocoa butter. It is the addition of milk powder and the lowering of cocoa in milk chocolate that gives it a creamier and sweeter taste. As for white chocolate, it doesn’t contain cocoa solids at all, only sugar, milk, and also a small quantity of cocoa butter.
Dark chocolate contains a minimum of 70% cocoa versus a maximum of 35% in white chocolate. Dark chocolate melts easier than white at room temperature.
What are the health benefits of each type?
Studies showed that eating dark chocolate is beneficial for the health. It contains high level of antioxidants which help eliminate toxins that can cause diseases. Dark chocolate is rich in epicatechin and Gallic acids which protect the heart from heart attacks. It also acts as an anticancer, brain stimulator, cough preventer and antidiarrheal effects. For people who are seeking to lose weight, white chocolate is the wrong choice, for its richness in calories. On the other hand, it contains a bit of calcium. It is the least nutritious of the 3 types due to the total absence of cocoa solids. As for milk chocolate, its nutritional profile is higher than white chocolate as a reason of the small presence of cocoa in it, but is still not very high to be considered as having very positive effects on the health.
We all know that chocolate, in general, is tasty, very tasty, but even the tastiest and healthiest one should be consumed wisely and in the right amount. White, milk and dark chocolate, are all bad if you abuse their intake. Eat wisely, stay healthy, you don’t want to gain weight or become addicted to them.