Weight Loss Tips & Tricks: What Are Bad Points About Chocolate?

Friday 11 September 2015

What Are Bad Points About Chocolate?

Eating chocolate may help you lower your blood pressure and your risk for heart disease and diabetes, according to MayoClinic.com. However, not all types of chocolate contain significant amounts of the compounds responsible for this effect, and chocolate is high in calories, fat and sugar, so it shouldn't be considered a health food.

High in Calories

Limit the amount of chocolate you consume to avoid going over your daily calorie allotment and gaining weight. Dark chocolate has 598 calories per 100 grams, which is 3.5 ounces. The same amount of milk chocolate has 535 calories. White chocolate, which isn't a true chocolate since it doesn't contain any cocoa solids, just cocoa butter, contains 539 calories per 100 grams.

High in Fat

Chocolate also contains a lot of fat. A 100-gram serving of dark chocolate has 42.6 grams of fat, including 24.5 grams of saturated fat, which is 66 percent of the daily value for total fat and 122 percent of the DV for saturated fat. Milk chocolate is lower in fat, with 29.7 grams of fat, including 18.5 grams of saturated fat. Even though a high percentage of the fat in milk chocolate consists of a type of saturated fat called stearic acid that doesn't raise your cholesterol levels, this is still a lot of fat. Consuming too much fat or saturated fat increases your risk for obesity, high cholesterol and heart disease.

High in Sugar

Sugar adds calories without providing any essential nutrients. The American Heart Association recommends women limit their added sugar intake to no more than 100 calories, or 25 grams, per day and men consume no more than 150 calories, or 37.5 grams, of added sugars per day. Each 100-gram serving of dark chocolate contains 24 grams of sugar, and the same amount of milk chocolate has 51.5 grams of added sugar.

Consumption Considerations

Chocolate eaten in moderation might not increase your risk for weight gain, since it contains flavonols, a type of beneficial plant chemical that acts as an antioxidant, that may decrease absorption of fat and increase satiety, notes an article published in "Phytotherapy Research" in 2013. You may need to eat up to 3 ounces per day of dark chocolate that contains at least 65 percent cocoa to experience heart-health benefits, so you'll have to eat less of other high-calorie foods to compensate for the 450 or so calories the chocolate contains, notes MayoClinic.com. Dark chocolate contains more than twice as many beneficial flavonols as milk chocolate, according to a study published in the "Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry" in August 2011.