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You should cocoa!

You should Cocoa!

Chocolate lifts your mood as well as energy levels. However, more is not better and the mood enhancing benefits come from moderation. Limit yourself to four squares, four times per week.

It contains cocoa butter, which is a saturated fat - but not luckily an artery-clogging trans-fat.

Chocolate has high levels of antioxidants to quench the damaging free radical molecules produced during strenuous exercise.

It has more concentrated levels of antioxidant than broccoli - but don't forget to eat your greens!

Think dark thoughts - the health benefits come from its cocoa content not its dairy content. Switch to bars with more than 50 per cent cocoa solids.

You get what you pay for - good chocolate is not cheap. Conversely, cheap chocolate is not good.

Any food that can keep your heart healthy, improve your circulation, and boost your energy production is going to be tempting to a cyclist. Good news, then, there's a popular snack that can do all of these things. Even better it's something that most of us actually feel guilty about eating: Chocolate. That's right -it seems that having a bit of a sweet tooth is no bad thing where riding is concerned.

Research has shown that the cocoa in chocolate is a rich source of minerals, in particular, magnesium, potassium and copper. These nutrients have a variety of roles in the body, especially critical for athletes, including energy production, muscle contraction and blood circulation.

Of course, you're probably thinking that, surely, chocolate is still bad for you because of it's fat content. Well, yes eat a lot of chocolate and give up cycling and you will be consuming a lot of fat, which is likely to be stored on your body. However, although the cocoa beans used in chocolate production do contain fatty cocoa butter, its three main types of fats are oleic acid (the most abundant fat in olive oil), stearic acid and palmitic acid. Far from being harmful to health, these fats have a neutral effect on blood cholesterol levels. If anything, the overall effect of cocoa butter on heart health and circulation is a positive one.

Many women crave and use chocolate as a way to soothe the monthly range of mood changes, stomach cramps and premenstrual symptoms. These symptoms are associated with a drop in magnesium, and so a chocolate craving may be nature's way of restoring mineral levels. However, green vegetables, fruit and wholegrain cereals are also good sources of magnesium, so it is likely that chocolate's other benefits, such as its mood-enhancing properties are what are really sought.

Better than spinach

Cocoa beans also contain substances called polyphenols. Found too in red wine, onions, spinach, broccoli and tea they are anti-oxidants which help to neutralise the damaging free radicals formed as a normal by-product of energy metabolism. The more you exercise, the more of these free radicals you produce. The ability of a food to neutralise free radicals is expressed as its oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC). In general, the higher a food's ORAC, the better. The good news is that, weight for weight, chocolate with a high percentage of cocoa has an ORAC 10 times that of spinach and about 15 times that of broccoli.

Beware, though, as not all chocolate is created equal. If you want to treat yourself to a'healthy'bar then you need to pay close attention to the amount of cocoa solids and type of fat it contains. The best variety of chocolate to choose is plain as it boasts higher cocoa and lower sugar levels, compared with milk or white varieties. The darker the chocolate, the more cocoa, and, therefore, more of the energy boosting minerals and antioxidant polyphenols. Look for the bars with a 60 or 70 per cent cocoa solid content.

The cheaper, and sweeter bars on the market aren't such a good choice. As cocoa and cocoa butter are expensive lower quality chocolate contains a meagre 25 per cent of cocoa with the rest being made up from milk solids, sugar and vegetable fat. The latter is the cheap, highly processed hydrogenated type, which contains the artery clogging trans fats. Unfortunately this combination is the most popular on the market and is an addictive mix of fat and sugar. It's best to keep these bars as (very) occasional treats. If you need a quick energy boost during a ride a carton of orange or apple juice is a much better choice.

Of course, chocolate usually just makes you happy.That's because it also contains over 300 trace compounds, several of which are known to affect your mood and feeling of well being. Why not enhance that sense of euphoria that comes during or after your next ride with a few squares of good quality chocolate?

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