100g of chocolate a day good for you?

jordanblakejpgr
jordanblakejpgr Posts: 19 Member
edited November 2017 in Food and Nutrition
There was a news story that 100 grams of chocolate a day is good for you - and this study was done using milk chocolate and not dark which surprised me. I presume just plain bars of chocolate and not ones with added sweets, honeycomb etc...

I am just curious to what people think as 100 grams is quite allot and normally yields around 20 grams of saturated fat and 50 grams of sugar.

I also guess it depends on what else you eat of course - i.e. high fibre intake, protein etc...

https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/is-chocolate-good-for-you-new-study-suggests-100g-a-day-may-be-beneficial-6339454

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Replies

  • RuNaRoUnDaFiEld
    RuNaRoUnDaFiEld Posts: 5,864 Member
    That is 535 calories, around a third of my calories in one food type.

    I wouldn't see how I could make that fit a healthy diet.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    500-600 calories of chocolate per day wouldn't be good *for me* because it would crowd out other things I need to eat.
  • toxikon
    toxikon Posts: 2,383 Member
    Here's a fascinating article on the chocolate business and how the big companies fund so many of these studies: https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/10/18/15995478/chocolate-health-benefits-heart-disease
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,342 Member
    100g a day would be excessive for anyone surely? Personally I can just imagine how bad my stomach would feel after all that sugar!
  • malibu927
    malibu927 Posts: 17,562 Member
    I think at my heaviest I ate 100 grams of Hershey Kisses in a day. But I couldn’t now.
  • acfisher88
    acfisher88 Posts: 58 Member
    Might also depend on the quality of the chocolate? Some of the big brands put a lot of oil in their chocolate to give it a 'silky smooth' texture, but it means there's not as much cocoa or milk content.
  • Rosemary7391
    Rosemary7391 Posts: 232 Member
    I love my little green and blacks 15g bars... they fit into my calories.
  • apullum
    apullum Posts: 4,838 Member
    I’m a big fan of chocolate and I’ve often said here that I eat chocolate every day. I wouldn’t be able to fit 100 grams of it into my calorie goals, though. However, if you want to eat more flavonoids, you don’t have to get them just through chocolate. They’re in many plants we eat, such as citrus, berries, black and green teas, and even red wine (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308814609011388).

    Moral of the story: eat chocolate covered strawberries with wine? :)
  • cs2thecox
    cs2thecox Posts: 533 Member
    Oh it'd do amazing things for my MIND.
    But mean I had to eat so little of anything else in the day that I'd be hangry...

    Epic sadface :(
  • mph323
    mph323 Posts: 3,565 Member
    edited November 2017
    That article doesn't say "100 g milk chocolate a day is good for you". It "suggests" that "up to" 100 grams of chocolate (several different kinds were used not exclusively milk) might be beneficial because

    "There are these things called flavonoids in cocoa that are supposed to be good".

    Throughout the article it stresses that any corolation could be put down to chance:

    But, Mr Lumley said the evidence for the association was only moderately strong, and could be down to chance.
    "Since the study is designed to look at many different aspects of diet, it is not at all impossible that any particular interesting correlation is due to chance. "

    It concludes:

    "Even if it is not due to chance, there are potential explanations other than a beneficial effect of chocolate. For example, people at high risk of heart disease may be avoiding chocolate."

    This is really nothing more than a proproganda piece about EAT MORE CHOCOLATE!!

    edited multiple times because grammar
  • nic_27_grassisgreener
    nic_27_grassisgreener Posts: 193 Member
    It's definitely hard not to get wrapped up in the latest news story either glorifying or demonizing particular foods. Unfortunately usually these studies are small, and don't really justify what the media would like to use for a flashy headline. It's best to try somewhat to ignore them, and use some common sense about what is "good for you". Nothing is bad, everything in moderation, 100 g of chocolate occasionally OK, 100 g of chocolate every day, maybe too much.

    (P.S. I love science, and food research! It's just important to remember that information has to be gathered across the entire field, not just one small study.)

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