Should you eat dark chocolate or pure cocoa powder?

Question

Now that recent studies have shown that cocoa can help to reduce hypertension and high blood pressure, would it be better to eat dark chocolate or pure cocoa powder? I got a few bars of 85% cocoa dark chocolate, but it contains 11g of saturated fat per serving! I only eat a square a day so that is 1/4 of the serving size, so I'm only taking in around 2.5g of sat fat from it, but then I'm not getting as much cocoa.

So I was thinking, what if I just bought some cocoa powder and took a tablespoon of that each day? I could mix it in a smoothie or something. Would that be better?

Answer 1

You're most assuredly on the right track! Keep in mind that milk blocks the beneficial effects of the bio-flavanoids (Nestle and Hershey were both p*ssed when that got out) so don't use milk in whatever you mix it in.

From experience with cocoa and chocolate I'll tell you that over time you'll start to enjoy cocoa powder all by itself. Try mixing a little into tomato sauces as one example of a 'weird' way to use it. It won't taste like a dessert at all but adds a wonderful depth to the sauce. If you make your own breads you can add cocoa to the bread also. Just experiment and try a little on everything and see what you like. A tablespoon a day would give you more cocoa than you're getting from that chocolate you're eating now!

BTW; Don't be too scared about the cocoa butter. It's not really all that bad of a sat fat (better than animal sat fat but not as good as E.V. Coconut oil).

Answer 2

You could eat pure cocoa powder but it wouldn't taste very nice so i recon you should eat dark chocolate with a high cocoa content which would be better then normal dark chocolate and would taste nicer than cocoa powder

Answer 3

It sounds like a reasonable plan. But if you wish to compare the quantity of cocoa you would be consuming in each scenario, you will first have to calculate whether the cocoa content in the square is equal to the cocoa content in the spoon. That may be difficult. So if you want to avoid the less-than-three-grams of fat you'd be eating, do it the smoothie way.

Answer 4

cacao itself is not sweetened...so cocoa powder will not be sweetened. I would suggest sticking with a dark chocolate, not only will it taste better, the satisfaction that you get from eating it has to have some sort of benefit also.

Answer 5

Pure cocoa powder is very bitter because it has absolutely no sugar in it.

Answer 6

Dark Chocolate ....