What Is a Flavonoid in Chocolate?

Cocoa beans are excellent sources of flavonoids, however not all chocolate maintains much of the cocoa bean. If your preferred chocolate bar is not dark chocolate, it might be a much better source of calories and sugar than of helpful flavonoids.

Kinds of Chocolate

All 3 components are consumed in differing quantities to make various types of chocolate, however the cocoa solids are the only source of flavonoids. Dark chocolate and milk chocolate both have cocoa solids and cocoa butter, however milk chocolate has less solids, and more sugar and milk is puttinged.

Flavonoid Basics

The type of flavonoids discovered in chocolate are flavanols. Given that flavonoids are discovered just in the solids, you can consume the portion of solids as a basic guide for selecting items with the most flavonoids. Dark chocolate consists of 45 to 80 percent cocoa solids, and milk chocolate has 5 to 7 percent.

Flavanols in Chocolate

Flavanols discovered in cocoa solids might decrease blood pressure and cholesterol, enhance glucose metabolic process and preserve the health of your blood vessels. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Database of Flavonoid Content reports that unsweetened baking chocolate has 206 milligrams of flavanols per 100 grams of chocolate, dark chocolate has half that quantity, and flavanol material drops down to 15 milligrams per gram in milk chocolate.

Factors to consider

Any benefits from flavonoids have to be thought about versus the calories, fat and sugar you'll get from chocolate. One ounce of dark chocolate with 70 to 85 percent cocoa solids has 170 calories, 12 grams of fat and 7 grams of sugar, which equates to about 2 teaspoons of granulated sugar.