9 Health Benefits of Chocolate

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Superfoods don't just come from your supermarket's produce aisle. In fact those chocolate candy bars next to the gummy bears now qualify. Study after study proves that dark chocolate—sweet, rich, and delicious—is good for more than curing a broken heart. The secret behind its powerful punch is cacao, also the source of the sweet's distinct taste. Packed with healthy chemicals like flavonoids and theobromine, this little bean is a disease-killing bullet. The only problem? Cacao on its own is bitter, chalky, nasty stuff. Enter milk, sugar, and butter—good for your taste buds, not always good for your health. Besides adding calories, these can dilute the benefits of cacao. So snack smart: Stick to healthy chocolate with at least 70 percent cacao (or cocoa, which is cacao in its roasted, ground form). As long as the content is that high, says Mary Engler, Ph.D., a professor of physiological nursing at the University of California at San Francisco, you can reap the be...

Why You Should Never Drink Iced Water


When eating out, I always ask my server for water with no ice and they often look at me like I am crazy. But I am not, and below I explain why.


First, take a minute to close your eyes and imagine the following: It is spring and you are standing on a wooden dock that extends into a high mountain lake. While the temperature in the air is fairly warm, the top layer of the lake has only recently melted and you can tell by the color of the crystal clear blue water that it is anything but warm. You close your eyes and dive in. What does your body do? What does your skin do?

Are you relaxed and open, or tight and constricted? “You probably know that warm water opens your pores and makes your skin feel looser, while cold water closes your pores and constricts your skin. Guess what? Drinking cold water does the same thing to your digestive tract!” What Happens When You Drink Cold Water – When you drink cold beverages your blood vessels shrink, your digestion becomes restricted and hydration is hindered.

 – Instead of working to digest the food and absorb the nutrients to create energy, your body is expending energy to regulate your temperature. This can lead to water loss. – Drinking cold water after a meal creates excess mucus in your body, which can lead to a decrease in immune system function, making it easier to catch colds and illnesses.

 – If you eat food while drinking cold beverages or immediately after, the water temperature solidifies fats from the foods we’ve just eaten and the body in turn finds it hard to digest the unwanted fats from our bodies.

 Some people say that drinking ice water is beneficial because it burns more calories. I argue that we do not want to make our digestive system have to work harder; we want to makes things as easy on it as we can. There are many other ways to burn calories!

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