By Dr. Mitch Siegal, D.C.

“Just a spoon-full of sugar helps the medicine go down,” says Mary Poppins to an unsuspecting pair of potentially over-weight childhood actors. Who knew fiction could, once again, become reality.

The truth of the matter is that unprocessed chocolate or cacao can be incredibly beneficial to people’s health, but the dutching process essentially negates the positive effects. Addressing all of the potential benefits of dark chocolate would take a book in itself, so I’ll narrow the spectrum down to one particular area of growing interest: weight loss and dark chocolate.

But first, a brief history:

Centuries before Haagen Das and Hershey’s, the South American cacao seed was discovered and developed by the Olmec Indians around 1500 BC. The cacao seed is a vegetable that grows on trees and is edible when crushed into a powder. It has been used for healing purposes and, even at times, currency. Aztecs and Mayans used cacao in a chocolate drink form and not much changed for 3,500 years until the early 19^th century when Dutchman Coenraad Johaness van Houten discovered that the bitter taste could be neutralized just by adding alkali-potash to the cacao nibs before roasting them. This alkalization, or Dutching process, is still used today to change the flavor as well as the color of the chocolate. So now we have the Dutching process combined with adding fats, dairy, sugar, waxes and preservatives; all the good things in life that keep us fat and happy—but mostly just fat. On top of all that, we had to go and heat it to death as well. Yes, you guessed it: chocolate is also heated to high temperatures rendering it mostly useless as the nutritional super-food that it once was. There you have it, we finally killed it. The entire process turned a powerful vegetable into a piece of candied milk chocolate. All this was done just to remove a little bitter taste and, of course, make millions. It’s a bittersweet story, no pun intended, but it has a happy ending, so stick with me.

Chocolate in its pure form—unprocessed—has the capacity to decrease your appetite, increase energy and decrease inflammation. Cacao seeds also contain flavonoids (antioxidants) that, when digested, protect our cells from the damaging effects of oxidation (the loss of electrons). Confused? Just leave a banana on the counter for a month—or even better, spend a summer in Tucson, Arizona and watch your skin start to wrinkle. That’s oxidation.

Here is a little science to back the aforementioned miracles of this wonder veggie. Cocoa contains a compound called anandamide. This little guy tricks the brain into thinking it has consumed something sweet, blocking the brain’s appetite control center. This is fantastic news for your waistline and not so good for fast food chains; sort of nature’s hammer to hunger.

Cocoa also stimulates dopamine and norepinephrine, a catecholamine that’s primary function includes stimulating the cardiovascular system and metabolism. So not only does dark chocolate help you resist the late night Wendy’s craving, but it also helps reduce the oxidation of the vessels of your heart that contribute to heart disease and stroke.

Next sweet tidbit up for grabs, alkaloids and tryptophan (an essential amino acid) found in cocoa help raise serotonin level. What’s seratonin? It is a neurotransmitter found in the central nervous system that modulates anger, aggression, body temperature, and yes, appetite. Starting to feel like this is the moment they told us about in high school where one day science would save our lives? Well it is, and there is even more: there is fiber in chocolate—a large dose of it. Fiber helps to block the absorption of fat, giving us the feeling of fullness, and hopefully we get the hint to put down the fork!

Cacao also triggers the release of endorphins—the body’s natural opiate pharmacy. The primary endocrine function of is that of an analgesic which reduces sensitivity to pain, which is yet another bonus of eating dark chocolate. But I’m sure you’re wondering how endorphins actually reduce your appetite. Endorphins reduce the desire to eat high-fat, high-sugar foods, and the stimulus we get from eating dark chocolate helps us shift from eating just to eat to making wiser dietary decisions. That’s what this all really boils down to: using chocolate as a tool or a mechanism to attain optimum health or at least the beginning stages of it.

Cocoa and dark chocolate can help in stabilizing blood sugar levels as well, reducing hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) and binge eating. Dark chocolate also increases healthy insulin sensitivity and normalizes the breakdown of glucose, meaning that it reduces the conversion of glucose into fats. You see, pretty much everything you eat converts into sugar (fuel for the body), but when blood sugar ratios are out of sync, which means the cell is having trouble allowing the sugars consumed to penetrate the outer membrane due to insulin deficiency, the sugar finds another home in your body. It has got to go somewhere, so the body stores the rejected sugars as fat. Lucky us. Couldn’t it be stored as cash or something?

Let’s take a break for a moment. This is starting to feel like school all over again which is a little depressing. Oh wait, cocoa and dark chocolate deliver something for that too (which hormonal women have known for years); it’s called (PEA) phenylethylamine. PEA can produce effects similar to amphetamines, which make us feel euphoric, happy, and excited. Researchers believe that PEA stimulates the production of dopamine which in turn can counter the depression associated with dieting. The vicious cycle of eating due to depression and depression due to being grossly overweight stops here…with dark chocolate!

Furthermore, chocolate can boost your energy. Ever have a cup of coffee and wonder why you’re not that hungry afterwards? The reduced appetite is mostly due to caffeine or stimulants, and although cocoa has no caffeine, there is a similar alkaloid called theobromine found in chocolate, which has similar effects. So once again, chocolate turns out to be a much healthier choice than the hyper-insulin boost we get from a cup of java, which usually ends up stored as fat. I’ll eat a piece of unrefined dark chocolate any day. This stuff just keeps getting better.

Although many foods are capable of providing a boost of energy, you’d be hard-pressed to find one that delivers the combined effects of what cocoa generates, which is essential when exercising. Does anyone really want to exercise when exhausted? We tend to just plop on the couch with a bag of chips and watch the tube. Increased energy gives us that boost we need to power on and make it to the gym, ultimately burning off even more calories and inches.

To recap, we have learned that eating dark unrefined chocolate is not only one of the healthiest things you can put in your digestive tract but one of the most delicious to boot. You truly are what you eat, and I’d rather eat unrefined dark chocolate than be fat. Consume enough preservatives and you’ll win best-looking corpse award. Remember when they dug up Edgar Mevers? Google it. He looked like he was buried next to the Sweet ‘N Low factory. The days of, “If it tastes good, spit it out!” are over. Knowledge is power, so learn everything you can about what you eat because the right foods will add years to your life and life to your years.

To find out more or purchase some of this super-food, go to www.docsiegal.com