Valentine’s Day is all about chocolates, and if your love gets you some, should you refuse or can you still go ahead and have it?
The magic answer is – control your portions. Just because you have diabetes does not mean you can’t eat chocolate. What you should remember, especially if you have diabetes, is that anything that you eat should be in moderation.
When you have diabetes, most people will tell you never to eat sugar, never to eat anything sweet and never to have any chocolates and cakes.
But according to reports from the American Diabetes Association, as long as you control the portion and go for small amounts, you can even have chocolates without increasing your risk as a diabetic.
Can Chocolate Really Be Good For You?
Yes, it’s true — chocolate does appear to have some health benefits. Though more research needs to be done, studies have indicated that cocoa and darker types of chocolate may help reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, decrease blood pressure, and relax blood vessels.
Many of the health benefits of chocolate seem to stem from the antioxidant flavanols (a type of flavonoid), which are also found in other plant foods including tea, grapes, grapefruit, and wine. The cocoa bean happens to be extraordinarily rich in them.
The flavanol content of chocolate depends on the flavanol content of the cacao plant used, and the way the cocoa was turned into chocolate. But here are three general rules of thumb:
- Cocoa powder and baking chocolate contain more flavonoids than dark chocolate.
- Dark chocolate has more flavonoids than milk chocolate.
- White chocolate has none.
Of course, there’s a catch to all this — you don’t want to cancel out all these potential health benefits of dark chocolate and cocoa by eating too many calories or too much saturated fat. So portion control is important.
