Chocolate's dark little secret
Chocolate products, including the bunnies and eggs of the season, may
get knocked for their calories, fat and sugar, but chocolate's source
-- cacao -- contains important vitamins and minerals and has
antioxidant properties.
at http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20050...3602-2385r.htm

"438's_kilbourne's_baby_girl" wrote.

> R U serious? If that's true, then how come people have been saying for
> all these years that chocolate can be unhealthy?

Americans suffer from strong Puritan influences. Puritans
tend to conflate anything enjoyable with being bad for you,
They used to do horrid things to adolescents to prevent
masturbation for example which they thought caused mental
illness. The converse was true though. The mentally ill of
the day had nothing better to do with their time in institutions
or whereever than to masturbate. Remember the only useful
drugs until the beginning of the 20th Century were mainly
the opiates, so the poor people had very little to calm them
down but alcohol and opiates and nothing to cheer them up
but coffee, tea, and coca-infused wine.

The Puritans got the anti-drug laws passed in the early
20th Century to discourage the use of opiates and stimulants
because they believed that drug use was a moral failing.
At this time the main drug addicts were medically addicted,
went to the doctor for their morphine or whatever prescriptions
and went to work. Lots of them were Civil War soldiers who
were actually in pain from old wounds but when the Harrison
Narcotics Act was passed in 1916 the doctors were no longer
allowed to prescribe opiod maintainence therapy and the junkie
was created.

So we are lucky chocolate didn't get a worse reputation than
it had in the 1950s when it was supposed to cause acne in
adolescents.

The Puritans are still running the War On some Drugs and
costing us billions of dollar a year just to maintain the
non-violent drug offenders in prison (most are cannabis users).
They are also running the war on sex education and on paid
consensual sex. If you are having fun there will be blue-nosed
puritan somewhere with a bad opinion of you even if you are
just dancing or listening to music.

later
bliss -- C O C O A Powered... (at california dot com)

--
bobbie sellers - a retired nurse in San Francisco

"It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by the beans of cocoa that the thoughts acquire speed,
the thighs acquire girth, the girth become a warning.
It is by theobromine alone I set my mind in motion."
--from Someone else's Dune spoof ripped to my taste.

"438's_kilbourne's_baby_girl" wrote.

> R U serious? If that's true, then how come people have been saying for
> all these years that chocolate can be unhealthy?

Americans suffer from strong Puritan influences. Puritans
tend to conflate anything enjoyable with being bad for you,
They used to do horrid things to adolescents to prevent
masturbation for example which they thought caused mental
illness. The converse was true though. The mentally ill of
the day had nothing better to do with their time in institutions
or whereever than to masturbate. Remember the only useful
drugs until the beginning of the 20th Century were mainly
the opiates, so the poor people had very little to calm them
down but alcohol and opiates and nothing to cheer them up
but coffee, tea, and coca-infused wine.

The Puritans got the anti-drug laws passed in the early
20th Century to discourage the use of opiates and stimulants
because they believed that drug use was a moral failing.
At this time the main drug addicts were medically addicted,
went to the doctor for their morphine or whatever prescriptions
and went to work. Lots of them were Civil War soldiers who
were actually in pain from old wounds but when the Harrison
Narcotics Act was passed in 1916 the doctors were no longer
allowed to prescribe opiod maintainence therapy and the junkie
was created.

So we are lucky chocolate didn't get a worse reputation than
it had in the 1950s when it was supposed to cause acne in
adolescents.

The Puritans are still running the War On some Drugs and
costing us billions of dollar a year just to maintain the
non-violent drug offenders in prison (most are cannabis users).
They are also running the war on sex education and on paid
consensual sex. If you are having fun there will be blue-nosed
puritan somewhere with a bad opinion of you even if you are
just dancing or listening to music.

later
bliss -- C O C O A Powered... (at california dot com)

--
bobbie sellers - a retired nurse in San Francisco

"It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by the beans of cocoa that the thoughts acquire speed,
the thighs acquire girth, the girth become a warning.
It is by theobromine alone I set my mind in motion."
--from Someone else's Dune spoof ripped to my taste.

R U serious? If that's true, then how come people have been saying for
all these years that chocolate can be unhealthy?

R U serious? If that's true, then how come people have been saying for
all these years that chocolate can be unhealthy?

The article, in its brevity and because of its source (Mars), neglects to
say that DARK chocolate is a food, not a candy. It is misleading to make a
general statement that "chocolate is healthy", when most milk chocolates
contain relatively little cocoa. The more cocoa content, the more of a
health claim can be made.

Geoff

"438's_kilbourne's_baby_girl"
> wrote in message
ups.com...
>R U serious? If that's true, then how come people have been saying for
> all these years that chocolate can be unhealthy?
>

The article, in its brevity and because of its source (Mars), neglects to
say that DARK chocolate is a food, not a candy. It is misleading to make a
general statement that "chocolate is healthy", when most milk chocolates
contain relatively little cocoa. The more cocoa content, the more of a
health claim can be made.

Geoff

"438's_kilbourne's_baby_girl"
> wrote in message
ups.com...
>R U serious? If that's true, then how come people have been saying for
> all these years that chocolate can be unhealthy?
>

Wow, Dark Chocolate is sort of non-sweet. It should be used for baking
more then anything else. Don't get me wrong. I like dark chocolate but
it isn't as sweet as milk or white chocolate. And I thought chocolate
was candy. I had no idea that it was catagorized as food!

That's what I thought too until I removed most sugar from my diet. I used
to dislike dark chocolate too - I think Hershey's dark was the only type I'd
eaten, and definitely would leave those alone if there was milk chocolate
available.

Once I went to a low-sugar diet, giving up candy, I found a
previously-unknown world of chocolate existed. Like many foods, it took
some getting used to...but now I could never eat milk chocolate even if I
was given it for free! Dark chocolate is rich and luxurious; milk chocolate
is insipid by comparison.

No, dark is not as sweet, but once you get used to it the milk chocolate
just won't do. And it's so low on the glycemic index, your body doesn't see
it as "candy". You have to watch how much you eat because it's
calorie-dense, though.

Geoff

"438's_kilbourne's_baby_girl"
> wrote in message
ups.com...
> Wow, Dark Chocolate is sort of non-sweet. It should be used for baking
> more then anything else. Don't get me wrong. I like dark chocolate but
> it isn't as sweet as milk or white chocolate. And I thought chocolate
> was candy. I had no idea that it was catagorized as food!
>

That's what I thought too until I removed most sugar from my diet. I used
to dislike dark chocolate too - I think Hershey's dark was the only type I'd
eaten, and definitely would leave those alone if there was milk chocolate
available.

Once I went to a low-sugar diet, giving up candy, I found a
previously-unknown world of chocolate existed. Like many foods, it took
some getting used to...but now I could never eat milk chocolate even if I
was given it for free! Dark chocolate is rich and luxurious; milk chocolate
is insipid by comparison.

No, dark is not as sweet, but once you get used to it the milk chocolate
just won't do. And it's so low on the glycemic index, your body doesn't see
it as "candy". You have to watch how much you eat because it's
calorie-dense, though.

Geoff

"438's_kilbourne's_baby_girl"
> wrote in message
ups.com...
> Wow, Dark Chocolate is sort of non-sweet. It should be used for baking
> more then anything else. Don't get me wrong. I like dark chocolate but
> it isn't as sweet as milk or white chocolate. And I thought chocolate
> was candy. I had no idea that it was catagorized as food!
>

Both of your reports on chocolate are very interesting!!!

Both of your reports on chocolate are very interesting!!!