Wanna do some chocolate...?

Chris Chung takes a light hearted look at the addictive power of chocolate ...

 

 

Cocoa or sugar - which one is bad for you ...?

 

 

 

Constant Craving

The term 'chocoholic' has been part of the vernacular for some twenty years but the darker side of chocolate was already known four hundred years earlier. The infamous 17th century slave trader and explorer, Antonio Carletti, observed of the natives of cocoa producing regions, Spaniards "and any other nationality" that partook of cocoa, that "once they start it they become so addicted that it is difficult for them not to drink it every morning, or late in the day ... or when on shipboard ... they carry it in boxes ... or made into tablets which dissolve quickly in water."

"The 12-step Chocoholics Program: Never be more than 12 steps away from chocolate."
(Terry Moore)

Just like packets of cigarettes today, chocolate was made portable and instantly available for a quick cocoa hit at any time, any place.

Sugar coated

What's more of a problem for chocolate addicts these days is the thirst-creating high sugar content of a lot of inferior commercial chocolate.

Slim4life author Jason Vales calls sugar "the cocaine of the food world" which sounds pretty ridiculous until you consider just what happens when you put white, refined sugar into your mouth:

First of all understand what sugar actually is - a food that has been stripped of all its vitamins, its minerals, its proteins, its fats, fibres and enzymes, in fact all its nutrients.

Time to rush

Normally when we eat food, it's broken down in the mouth, further broken down in the stomach, then passes into the intestines where the nutrients are absorbed. But sugar has no nutrients remember so once in the stomach it actually goes straight through the stomach wall without being digested, releasing an instant rush of glucose to the bloodstream.

Your blood sugar level has now rocketed and you will die unless it comes down fast. While you're enjoying your sugar 'high', your pancreas meanwhile is on red alert and releases a shot of insulin to counteract the excess sugar and keep you alive – the 'rush' you're experiencing therefore is actually the rush of insulin released into the bloodstream.

Problem - insulin is a powerful hormone which doesn't know its own strength; result - it does its job a little too well so ten minutes or so later, instead of just stabilizing, your blood sugar levels actually start falling - you now have the opposite problem of low blood sugar and pretty soon you're craving another fix ...

 

Read on to see how much chocolate an addict eats and find out about the chemicals in chocolate that might be keeping you coming back ...      Next  >>>