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Chocolate: Passion and Prevention in One Dark Package While pursuing other, less peaceful ends in sixteenth-century Mexico, the Spanish colonizers observed that the Aztecs consumed great quantities of what they called xocoalt, a very bitter beverage made from cacao (cocoa) beans. Without knowing it, they had stumbled upon what was fated to become a veritable object of gourmet desire! Dark chocolate – made of 70 per cent cocoa mass – is an utterly delicious food with surprising and multiple benefits for health. Numerous trials have shown that cocoa mass contains large amounts of a certain class of polyphenols, the proanthocyanidins: molecules that possess potent health-promoting properties. These polyphenols are very similar to those found in other foods also known for their protective effect against cancer, especially green tea, berries, and onions. It follows that the molecules present in chocolate provide similar benefits. In fact, recent studies carried out on lab animals show that the addition to diet of cocoa mass extracts significantly slows down the growth of some cancers induced by carcinogenic substances. More research is needed to confirm the benefits of chocolate in cancer prevention, but the preliminary results are very encouraging, and even more so when one considers that the regular consumption of chocolate should not be too problematic for people who are careful about what they eat! It should be noted, however, that previous studies have shown that the presence of milk will prevent the absorption of polyphenols from dark chocolate, thus neutralizing its positive effects. It may sound counterintuitive, but it seems better to enjoy dark chocolate without that accompanying glass of milk. A common-sense caveat: all chocolate, including dark chocolate, is a calorie-rich food that should be eaten in moderation. The benefits associated with chocolate will be even greater if its regular consumption replaces that of other snack foods loaded with fats and sugars and without any health benefits whatsoever. In a cancer-fighting diet, there is no doubt that a daily twenty-gram serving of 70 per cent dark chocolate represents a simple, efficient, and delicious way of preventing the onset of cancer and cardiovascular disease. Dark chocolate is that rare but perfect example of a very good thing that’s also very good for you!
Excerpted from Cooking with Foods That Fight Cancer by
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Chocolate Tip
Foods That Fight Cancer has sold more than 180,000 copies across Canada and has kick-started a revolution in our understanding of the cancer-fighting properties of food. Now we know of the health properties of green tea, dark chocolate, and red wine, but how do we learn to incorporate these foods into our daily diet? Anticipating this dilemma, authors Richard Béliveau and Denis Gingras have teamed up with professional chefs to create Cooking with Foods that Fight Cancer. Purchase Book Richard Béliveau is a leading authority in the field of cancer research. He holds the Chair in the Prevention and Treatment of Cancer at the University of Quebec at Montreal, where he is a professor of biochemistry. He is the director of the Molecular Medicine Laboratory of UQAM—Sainte-Justine Hospital (Centre de cancérologie Charles-Bruneau) and is also a professor of surgery at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Montreal. Dr. Béliveau’s profile continues to grow across Canada. He now writes a regular column for the SunMedia newspaper chain and is a featured expert guest on national broadcast media. Denis Gingras is a researcher in the Molecular Medicine Laboratory of UQAM—Sainte-Justine Hospital (Centre de cancérologie Charles-Bruneau) and the University of Quebec at Montreal.
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