Chocolate: A Good Mood Food
I told you all about some great foods for your mood before, but there is one food that you’ll be overjoyed to learn is actually great for finding your good mood naturally: Chocolate! Mmmmmmm, chocolate. I’ve done some research on the web and found some of the ways that chocolate can be a great mood booster.
First off, chocolate is loaded with various ingredients that make it the ideal food for putting you in a great frame of mind. Flavonoids, which are also found in green tea and red wine, can help improve circulation and reduce blood pressure. The flavonoids, a kind of antioxidant, are found in the raw form of cocoa, so it’s best to stick to chocolate that has a high cocoa content. Most dark chocolates have the cocoa percentage on the label, so look for bars with 70% for the highest concentration.
Helping circulation and lowering blood pressure are only part of the equation. While it’s never been much of a secret that chocolate makes people smile just from the blissful taste, scientists also used to think that the phenylethylamine found in chocolate released endorphins in the brain, helping to enhance one’s mood. But, according to an article on BusyCooks.About.com, “the amount of phenylethylamine in chocolate is so small it's probably not the cause of better feelings. Rather, the combination of sugar with fat can raise serotonin and endorphin levels in the brain. Just one ounce of chocolate does the trick.”
Either way, I know how excited I get when I think about chocolate, so it’s no wonder it can do so much for your mood. Be careful though, as chocolate is still a “sweet” and too much of a good thing can do more harm in the long run. You don’t have to gorge yourself on chocolate every time you want to get a mood boost.
You can find out more about the health benefits of chocolate on HealthyAlberta.com, in this article, Is Chocolate Good for Us? I won’t spoil the whole thing for you, but according to the article, Dr. Donna Vine, assistant professor at the Alberta Institute for Human Nutrition at the University of Alberta, says, “If someone has blood pressure problems and a chocolate tooth, a small amount of dark chocolate, as part of a well-balanced diet, is not a bad thing.”
I feel I would be remiss if I didn’t leave you with a little treat after all this talk of chocolate, so here’s a recipe from GroupRecipes user Boofie for a delicious Hot Dark Chocolate Pie. I can’t wait to try it!
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