heart healthy chocolate

S

SwedishFish

Conspirator
Registered Senior Member
A Dark Chocolate a Day Keeps the Doctor Away

craving chocolate is good for you kids. i think i'll go hunt down some health food. ;)

? in the article:
"Mary Engler, PhD, RN"

PhD and RN?

"Many people don't realize that chocolate is plant-derived"
:confused: who are these people? do they think it falls from the sky in candy bar form?
 
No, it comes from the chocolate mines! It is actually a kind of delicious igneous rock.
 
I read a book on multiple system failure a few months ago that was written mainly by nurses, some of which had post grad qualifications.

I'd say many people would consider chocolate a dairy product. Hell, they even put cows on some of the packaging.
 
so i guess there really are chocolate cows producing chocolate milk, a la the hershey's syrup commercials.
would a cocao tree die in this northern climate if i planted it in my yard? what about a large pot?
 
http://www.mrkland.com/fun/xocoatl/tree.htm

Here's a little information - specifically it says that the tree needs constant temperatures between 21 - 32 degrees centigrade, and a damp climate. Without an indoor greenhouse this is pretty much hopeless, but I find plants are usually slightly more tolerant than they're given credit for.

As an understory rainforest tree they probably never see much sun, so light isn't a major factor. They also say 10cm of rain a month, which is quite a bit of water.

So, if you're gonna grow your xocolatl, you'll need to keep your house hottish (unless you live someplace hot, in which case they'll be fine.)
 
i could build a greenhouse on the outside of the house to keep it constant humidity. i'm not sure about constant temperature. do you need to artificially heat a greenhouse besides sunlight? i think my roommate will object to the increased energy usage. he already grumbles because i like it slightly above freezing.
oh well, it's probably too hard to process the cocao anyway. so i'll have to stick to godiva cocoa for now.
haha i've been asked (as if i could) to engineer a miniture xocolatl that will grow in a table top pot (bonsai) and produce edible cocao beans.
 
Bonsai is just about cutting the roots, isn't it? They do it with fruit trees sometimes.
 
The only thing is, the risks of eating anything other than very dark chocolate outweight the benefits so does anyone here actually like 70% rich chocolate?! Its very bitter tasting!
 
godiva's 72% is jesus

you can make chocolate to drink with pure cocoa, just don't add anything but water. kind of like chocolate tea. or you can put cocoa in soy milk and kill two birds with one cocao pod.
 
I want to live at SwedishFish place :)

been looking at cocoa plant to, until i learn its was a tree :(
 
Nothin' wrong with bitter chocolate, John... the Aztecs used to grind up the seeds and drink them straight, that was the original form of chocolate (or xocolatl, as they spelled it, since they liked their "atl"s. Tomatl, axolotl, et cetera.)

The geniuses who refined and added other ingredients are of course to be lauded as well, but I still like the super-dark chocolate, aka The Hard Stuff.
 
Fair enough... but what are the risks of eating chocolate? Do you stick it in your eye by accident or something?
 
The risks of eating (any other chocoloate) are the same as the risks of eating candy (as both have vast quantities of sugar in them) not to mention other risks for people who are lactose intolerant!
 
Yes, but that's not like the "risks of smoking" or anything, I mean c'mon. Given your choice of dying from "too many sweets" or "having your face ripped off by weasels", which would you choose?
 
Just believe me Bigblue: the benefit derived from flavonids in chocolate is nothing compared to the deleterious effects okay? Remember what we are talking about in the first place ;)
 
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