When you think of a healthy diet, be sure to include dark chocolate for its many health benefits.

If you could think of the ideal diet plan that could help keep you healthy, improve your life expectancy and help you shed some pounds, it would almost certainly incorporate chocolate. Numerous diet plans ban chocolate. You may think it exciting to discover that chocolate is definitely offered in the mega-healthy Mediterranean diet plan.

Chocolate is routinely looked upon as a decadent pleasure that's to be avoided if you're attempting to live a healthy life and most especially if you intend to drop weight. That's just not true when it refers to dark chocolate. The primary health feature of dark chocolate is due to the fact that it has a very substantial level of flavonoids. Flavonoids are formidable antioxidants which are also found in some tea, red wine and apples.

In this video learn more of the health benefits of dark chocolate!

The antioxidants in chocolate provide many health benefits

Antioxidants are essential to your diet plan since they protect your cells and tissues from free radical damage. Free radicals are unhealthy because they are compounds which can damage your cells as well as change them and trigger some chronic diseases. So chocolate, with its antioxidants, serves to shield you and all of the effects of stress, aging and from adopting a poor diet plan.

Chocolate contains critical minerals for good health

Dark chocolate also contains minerals that are very important to your health. A little chunk of dark chocolate furnishes you the highly recommended daily quantity of magnesium and about 35% of the recommended daily ration of copper.

Magnesium is an important mineral for your general health. It helps you sustain strong bones, lower stress, uninhibited nerve transmission and soothed muscles for relief from pain. Chocolate also helps generate energy almost immediately if you need a mid-day lift.

In this video learn how chocolate can even help with weight loss!

Copper is necessary for producing chemical healthy messages to the brain (neurotransmitters) and studies show that it also diminishes your risk of heart disease. You can also depend on dark chocolate to aid your cardiovascular health by greatly improving your circulation by encouraging a healthy effect on the arteries which equip your heart with the oxygen it requires to function as it should.

Dark chocolate benefits concerning disease prevention

By snacking on a small amount of dark chocolate each week, you can help defend against obstruction of the arteries caused by LDL (bad cholesterol). The flavonoids incorporated in chocolate have practically the same effect as aspirin although it isn't recognized yet if eating chocolate can defend against a stroke or heart attack. Flavonoids are natural blood thinners and have a profound and instant effect on your platelets which can clot to cause a heart attack).

As an added perk to eating dark chocolate in your Mediterranean-style diet, you need to know that it can help support your mood as well as cognitive function. Energy levels are also improved. So, don't think of chocolate as forbidden but just take pleasure in dark chocolate in small amounts and reap the benefits.