How much cocoa do you need?  (Sharon Basaraba ©)

With Valentine's coming up, you might be concerned about confining your chocolate consumption to very dark products, that is, 75% cocoa, or higher. Turns out, what makes that chocolate the healthiest, has less to do with the percentage of cocoa, and more to do with how it's processed.

Much of the cocoa on the market undergoes a procedure called "Dutch-processing", or "alkalization", to make it darker, less bitter, and more easily dissolved in beverages.  Trouble is, this 200-year old process destroys much of the healthy antioxidants in cocoa, called flavanols, leading researchers to push for labeling chocolate products with flavanol levels instead of cocoa content.

The good news is, some major studies indicating chocolate's beneficial effect on heart health did not distinguish between dark chocolate or milk chocolate products.  Last August, a major meta-analysis of seven studies, involving more than 114,000 people, revealed that the risks of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and stroke were all diminished by eating chocolate - of any kind - more than twice a week. The greater point of concern is to keep your portions small, to minimize the chance of gaining weight.  There's no point reaching for chocolate, to ward off a heart attack or stroke, if eating it makes you gain weight, which increases your risk of - you guessed it - heart attack and stroke!

So choose small amounts, and spend time really savoring it.  Enjoy!

Top 5 Things You Need to Know About Chocolate and Longevity

_Source:

_{Adriana Buitrago-Lopez et al. "Chocolate Consumption and Cardiometabolic Disorders: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. BMJ 2011;343:d4488. http://www.bmj.com/content/343/bmj.d4488}

(MIB Pictures / Getty Images)

If you give your loved ones chocolate this Valentine's Day, you could be offering them a delicacy - and a longer life.  There's a growing body of evidence showing chocolate may enhance your longevity, mostly through a reduction in cardiovascular events.  Even consuming just a small amount, regularly,  has been shown to reduce the risk of heart attack, stroke and diabetes.

Though much attention has been focused on choosing dark chocolate with a high cocoa content, many nutrition researchers are now advocating for chocolate with labels showing flavanol levels instead - as flavanols are the compounds believed to be most beneficial in chocolate.  However, they are largely destroyed during cocoa processing.   In fact, cocoa and chocolate have been used for medicinal purposes for thousands of years, in less processed form.

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Americans spend more than $1.4 billion a year on over the counter teeth whitening products, says the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry - in an effort to look younger, and more attractive.  According to news reports like this one from ABC News, dentists have coined the term 'bleachorexia", for the obsessive pursuit of white teeth. This, despite growing evidence that over-whitening can thin enamel, which, ironically, will make teeth appear more yellow.

Unfortunately, even many foods which are great for you - berries, red wine, chocolate, even green tea - can cause stains on teeth and make you look older.  Don't despair!  There are ways to prevent teeth stains, so you can eat foods that help you live longer, and still keep your tooth enamel intact.

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A little goes a long way (Sharon Basaraba ©)

Attention all chocolate lovers (and that's a club with a lot of members): when it comes to choosing which chocolate is the healthiest, quantity, and frequency, may be more important than quality.  A couple of fairly recent research reviews looking at the effect of chocolate consumption and cardiovascular disease, analysed how often, and how much, chocolate people ate, without distinguishing between milk or dark chocolate.  For example, in a British Medical Journal review of seven studies involving about 114,000 subjects, University of Cambridge researchers concluded those who ate chocolate more than twice a week had a 37 per cent lower chance of developing heart disease, and a 29 per cent lower risk of stroke - whether they ate their chocolate dark, in drinks, baking or as nutritional supplements.

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