ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, November 27, 1996 TAG: 9611270001
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Washington Post
In a world of ever-narrowing options, this is sure to lift many spirits: Chocolate may be good for you.
It's a little complicated, but in a study on oxidation by three food chemists at the University of California-Davis, cocoa was shown to contain ``potent flavonoids - pigments and polyphenols that retard oxidation,'' according to a report in the Oct. 12 issue of Science News.
Does that ring a bell? Well, it did for Andrew L. Waterhouse and his colleagues at UC-Davis, because they knew that oxidation is what turns low-density lipoproteins (those would be the nasty LDLs of cholesterol-testing fame) into the plaque that clogs our arteries.
So they wondered if chocolate just might function in the same way as red wine (that other bit of good news from the nutrition front) does to counter the formation of these bad lipoproteins. And it did - in some studies, it actually worked even better. Who says science isn't working to make us happier?
Anyway, we hear you ask, how much chocolate are we talking about? According to the Science News account, while a 5-ounce glass of red wine has about 210 milligrams of polyphenolic antioxidants, Waterhouse's group found that 8 ounces of hot chocolate made with 2 tablespoons of cocoa contains 146 milligrams. A 1.5-ounce milk chocolate chunk has 205 milligrams.
In a related item on why chocolate makes us feel good - it has opiates! (no surprise to us) - Science News reports, ``the average U.S. resident consumes more than 11 pounds of chocolate each year.'' You ask, is this enough?
Check our math: If the recommendation for heart-protective wine consumption is two 5-ounce glasses per day, that's about 420 milligrams of the antioxidants. Taking that figure, you'd need about 3 ounces of chocolate per day, or more than 68 pounds per year.
It's a challenge, but we feel up to it.
LENGTH: Short : 42 linesby CNB