Chocolate and red wine are good for your heart, right?
Posted by kathryn in Myths
This isn’t going to be a popular post.
The health message that chocolate and red wine contain antioxidants has really cut through. The idea that previously unhealthy foods, like chocolate and red win,e could actually be good for you, has been picked up with alacrity by both the media and individuals.
But . . . as per usual, it’s more complicated than that.
Last week the Heart Foundation released a comprehensive report on the antioxidants in food, drinks and supplements. They’ve reviewed all the studies, weighted all the evidence and found the health benefits of chocolate and red wine just don’t add up.
But surely dark chocolate is good for you?
Cacao is the basis of all chocolate. It’s a bean, from which cocoa solids and cocoa butter are extracted. Cacao itself is a rich source of flavonoid antioxidants. However these flavonoids are bitter and astringent – they don’t taste great – so they’re often removed in the chocolate manufacturing process.
This is true of dark chocolate manufacturing, as well as white and milk chocolate.
And at the moment it’s impossible to say which brands are high in these flavonoids and which brands are low. Cocoa processing techniques differ across the industry and the levels of flavonoids in the resulting chocolate also vary.
You can’t tell from the wrapper, or the manufacturer’s marketing, whether the chocolate your eating is high in antioxidants, or if it’s just fat and sugar.
Studies from the US do show that natural cocoa powders are high in the flavonoid antioxidants, but these are quite hard to find and expensive.
Therefore the Heart Foundation does not recommend:
Consuming milk or dark chocolate for the prevention or treatment of CVD. Due to processing to remove the bitter taste, most chocolate is a poor source of antioxidants, and contains saturated and trans fats.
And red wine?
The idea that red wine was protective against heart disease came out of studies in France. Looking into peoples’ diets, reseachers were puzzled by their high saturated fat intake and yet low rate of heart disease – which became known as the ‘French Paradox’.
The suggestion that antioxidants in red wine protected against heart disease took hold. But the evidence for this is sketchy. While antioxidants do exist in red wine, there’s no conclusive evidence that they protect against heart disease.
Given the problems with excessive alcohol consumption, the Heart Foundation’s position is:
Conflicting and insufficient evidence exists regarding the CVH benefits of polyphenols in red wine.
Take home message
The best sources of antioxidants are plant based foods: vegetables, fruit, wholegrain cereals, nuts and seeds and legumes – these are the foods you should be concentrating on, if you want to reduce your risk of heart disease.
The Heart Foundation recommends:
- Eat at least two serves of fruit and five serves of vegetables every day.
- Drink black or green tea, and if you add milk, use reduced, low or no fat milk.
- Use raw cocoa powder in drinks and cooking as most commercial cocoa and chocolate will be poor sources of antioxidants.
- If you drink alcohol, drink no more than two standard drinks a day.
- If you drink coffee, drink less than five cups of paper-filtered, percolated, café-style or instant coffee a day.
I’m not saying don’t eat red wine or chocolate. If you enjoy them, there’s no reason why they can’t be part of a healthy diet. But ignore the hype and marketing and remember they are treat foods, not health foods.
18 May, 2010
Comments
Excellent advice and a quotable take-home message, Kathryn. I hope you don’t mind if I use it in my practice.
Also, I didn’t know flavonoids were removed during processing so I appreciate learning this crucial information.
It is a very informative post. Thanks Kathryn!
Great article. And yes, this kind of thinking makes us very unpopular with our clients :)
I remember a Kerry Bone lecture in 1992(?) explaining the French wine in the study was was usually rough and young, a totally different antioxidant profile than an aged, smooth red. That message never seemed to make it to doctors or popular media. Nor some later data that when the study was repeated on women there were no significant CVS advantages.
Another case of if it seems to good to be true, it probably is.
Tops.
Glad to see it written down.
We do like to fool ourselves into believing that treats are good for us, and in quantity…
Elaine – of course I don’t mind. In fact I’d be honoured if you used it in your practice! I also hadn’t made the connection between flavonoids, the bitter components and what would be removed to make the chocolate taste better. It’s a good bit of research from the HF.
Thank you Anh.
Gill – you are so right when you say “if it seems to good to be true, it probably is”. And interesting point about the antioxidants in young vs old wine. The health messages do get massively simplified, into black and white / good and bad. And we have to remember that growing conditions, soil, age, freshness, etc all affect the nutrient content of foods.
Lucy – yes indeedy. Wish we could just accept that treats are treats. Have them occasionally, buy quality, enjoy them thoroughly. And then go back to eating your greens.
Very interesting…. I agree with your reply above – any treat should be accepted for what it is: a ‘sometimes’ food.
The media are rather predictable in promoting ‘half the story’ when it comes to research on how good for us our ‘treats’ really are, and withholding some of the circumstances around the research and testing. I absolutely adore chocolate, and always wondered just how much of the ‘goodness’ outweighed all that sugar and fat. At least now I don’t have to kid myself into thinking I’m digesting all those non-existent flavanoids (but I’ll still be savouring the delightful taste!!)
It’s interesting to hear about the cocoa processing. I don’t think I’ve ever had raw cocoa powder. Does it taste good in baking? It’s a shame the chocolate story is too good to be true, but it’s nice to hear tea is one of the good guys.
Arwen – I’ve never tried the natural cocoa powder, in fact not even sure where you’d buy it from. You can still enjoy chocolate, it’s just a treat rather than a health food.
Good ol’ common sense wins again. No one likes to hear the same old message about veggies being good for you, but there’s no way that chocolate or red wine or coffee or whatever can even come close.
The only thing that can’t be measured in the modern diet is the ‘feel good factor’. I’m lucky to have a good diet and a thorough exercise lifestyle, so I am safe to indulge every now and then. Increasingly, I’m finding that if I satisfy a chocolate craving with a standard milk chocolate bar, it’s guaranteed to be disappointing. Perhaps it’s the food snob in me! But one thing I do know is that abstinence from the ‘sometimes’ foods is neither good for the body, nor the soul :)
Another thing that is putting me off chocolate a bit lately is reading about the origins of its ingredients. Fair Trade is so important, so I nearly fell off my chair when I saw Cadbury with the FT logo. Palm oil is the other one to be wary of. It might be bought at a good dollar price, but the environmental cost doesn’t look fair to me.
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