The good and the bad of a popular treat.
Getty Images
Question: After eating modest amounts of chocolate with 70% cocoa, a maximum of 6-8 squares in a day, I started having heart palpitations that were sufficiently scary to make me see my doctor. She was so concerned that I went to A&E twice. A nurse asked me about my coffee consumption, and that made me wonder about the chocolate, although no one at the hospital mentioned it. Could the chocolate be the cause?
Answer: Heart palpitations can be a sign of a heart problem, so it’s always best to have them checked by your doctor. Heart palpitations can also be caused by stress, anxiety, certain health conditions, medications and caffeine-containing foods.
Caffeine stimulates our central nervous system, heart and respiratory system. In moderate doses it increases alertness, concentration and energy levels. At higher doses, though, caffeine can cause anxiety, irritability, restlessness, insomnia and heart palpitations, particularly in people who are sensitive to caffeine’s effects. In fact, caffeine-sensitive people can experience negative effects after drinking just one cup of coffee or tea.
Chocolate is a significant dietary source of caffeine, as are tea, coffee and cola drinks. Both cocoa and chocolate are derived from cacao beans that contain caffeine. Cacao beans are fermented, dried, roasted and processed to produce cocoa solids and cocoa butter. The amount of caffeine found in cocoa solids and butter varies with the bean variety and fermentation process.
Typically, chocolate is mainly made from a combination of cocoa solids and cocoa butter. Generally, the darker the chocolate, the more cocoa solids it contains and consequently the more caffeine it contains. So a 50g bar of milk chocolate might contain around 10mg of caffeine, but a 50g bar of dark chocolate could contain 35mg of caffeine.
Dark chocolate, then, is likely to cause more issues for caffeine-sensitive people. For caffeine-sensitive chocolate lovers, this is unfortunate news, as darker chocolates typically contain more antioxidants, too. These flavonoid antioxidants may protect the body from damage by free radicals and influence insulin resistance, and in turn may reduce the risk of getting diabetes and have blood-thinning effects that protect against heart disease.
In fact a recent review, in the British Medical Journal, found high levels of chocolate consumption were associated with a one-third drop in the risk of developing heart disease. However, more high-quality experimental research is needed before any conclusions on health effects can be made.
Still, chocolate is an energy-dense food that can promote weight gain, so a moderate intake is recommended. To take a healthier approach to chocolate eating:
- choose as dark a chocolate as possible;
- avoid white, milk and filled chocolates;
- choose dark chocolate ahead of less-healthy treats like full-fat ice-cream and sugary lollies; and
- make hot chocolate drinks with unsweetened cocoa, water and/or low-fat milk.
Question: Cadbury seems to be using palm oil again, this time in its new Dairy Milk Mousse chocolate. Can you draw this to the attention of Listener readers?
Answer: Vegetable oil appears on the ingredients list for Cadbury’s new chocolate product. It can refer to palm or any other vegetable-derived oil – further clarification from the manufacturer is required to determine exactly what it is. Palm oil is nutritionally undesirable as it contains nearly 50% saturated fat. Diets high in saturated fat and low in unsaturated fats are associated with a higher risk of heart disease. Unsurprisingly the National Heart Foundation recommends limiting the intake of palm oil along with butter, palm kernel and coconut oils.
Production of palm oil has also raised serious ecological issues to do with deforestation in Asia causing a threat to the survival of many endangered animal species. Cadbury says although its chocolate blocks generally don’t contain palm oil, most of its ones with caramel, crème or wafer-type fillings do contain a “small amount”. Cadbury says it uses palm oil in the Mousse product to give the filling its smoothness and melt qualities.
From an ecological perspective, Cadbury says it verifies that its palm oil is supplied from sustainable sources. From a nutrition perspective, unfilled dark chocolate would be a better choice, but the choice is ultimately yours.