Perhaps you've heard that chocolate is actually good for you. If you're a lover of chocolate then this sounds like great news as you've been doing something good for yourself without even knowing it. Maybe you've always thought that eating chocolate was a guilty pleasure but now you've been freed to consume as much as you'd like. Be wary, though, because not all chocolate is equal. In today's post I'll talk about some ways to get the best health benefits from chocolate.

Natural Antioxidant

Chocolate is a diverse mixture of hundreds of naturally occurring compounds. Some of them are antioxidants which we know help fight off free radical damage to your cells. In order to get this benefit, you must consume dark chocolate on its own, without milk. Milk chocolate, or even dark chocolate consumed with a glass of milk, will retard the absorption of the antioxidants.

Muscle Recovery

A study put out by James Madison University suggests chocolate is as good as (if not better than) specialty sports drinks. The participants actually drank chocolate milk instead of straight chocolate so some of the benefits were from the milk itself. Chocolate does help promote endurance and contains stimulants in addition to its health benefits so it was likely that the two were working together.

Heart Health

One study has shown that people who eat chocolate after a heart attack are at lower risk of another heart attack than those who do not consume chocolate. The ones who benefited in the study are those who ate dark chocolate; those who ate white chocolate received no benefits.

So be sure to get out and get some high quality, high cocoa content dark chocolate and start realizing the health effects today!