Dark chocolate, cocoa flavanols, cellulite and overall health

“It doesn’t take a nutritional genius to understand that to get some good cardiovascular / insulin sensitising / collagen preserving benefits from dark chocolate you need to first swallow 12 teaspoons of sugar and 4 tablespoons of vegan lard, clogging your arteries, filling up your subcutaneous fat cells (fat) and hypodermal fat cells (cellulite) and reducing insulin sensitivity all over your body.”

Does chocolate cause cellulite? Even dark chocolate?

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• Is dark chocolate fattening?

• Is the 30% sugar contained in dark chocolate healthy?

• Is the 25% fat contained in dark chocolate healthy?

• “Have only two squares”

• Is dark chocolate fattening? Dark chocolate nutrition facts.

• Dark chocolate = 42% fat + 30% sugar (doesn’t sound that healthy anymore)

• What about the “antioxidants” in dark chocolate? Cocoa flavanols in dark chocolate.

• High flavanol cocoa powder, dark chocolate and artery health

• How about high flavanol dark chocolate?

• Dark chocolate and glycation

• Does chocolate cause cellulite?

• Can high-flavanol cocoa prevent or reduce cellulite?

• Dark chocolate, high flavanol cocoa, collagen, elastin and skin firmness/elasticity

• Dark chocolate, fibre and protein

• Milk chocolate nutrition facts

• Milk chocolate: even more sugar (around 50%)

• White chocolate nutrition facts

• White chocolate: same as milk chocolate, i.e. 50% sugar, but with no fibre whatsoever

• What about 100% dark chocolate? surely i must be amazing for you, because it’s pure cocoa, right?

• 100% dark chocolate nutrition facts

• 100% dark chocolate: zero sugar, but still a food containing 54% fat plus some carbs still

• How much flavanols in dark chocolate, milk chocolate and cocoa powder?

• The healthiest “chocolates” in the world

• High flavanol cocoa skincare

• Verdict: sorry, no chocolate is “healthy”, even the 100% ones

• Dark chocolate vs blueberries

• Red wine vs dark chocolate vs high flavanol cocoa

• Chocolate: sugar rush, dopamine rush, serotonin rush, caffeine rush, phenylethylamine rush

• Magnesium content in chocolate

• Chocolate snack bars: even more unhealthy

• All in all chocolate is a cause of extra body fat, insulin resistance, skin damage, low grade inflammation and cellulite…

• Check our professional consultancy in radiofrequency, ultrasound cavitation, cellulite and skin tightening

Dark chocolate is “healthy”, right?

Dark chocolate has a reputation of being “healthy”, especially for the heart, and specifically in relation to milk chocolate and white chocolate.

Many of our clients at the clinic say that they consume dark chocolate regularly.

That includes dark chocolate milk drinks, dark chocolate brownies and dark chocolate muffins (sometimes they even bring them to eat at the clinic), since apparently it is “healthy” and it therefore it won’t affect cellulite.

But does the hype stand to scrutiny? Here we present all the aspects of dark chocolate in relation to health and appearance.

Is the 30% sugar contained in dark chocolate healthy?

Is a food that contains 30% sugar healthy? Exactly.

Dark chocolate typically contains anything between 60-100% cocoa fat and cocoa solids, with the rest being sugar. This means that a 60% dark chocolate contains 40% sugar, the 70% variety contains 30% sugar and the 80% contains 20% sugar.

Whichever way you see it, that’s a whole lot of sugar, especially if you intend to have the whole chocolate bar, which many people do.

With a typical 100g chocolate bar of 70% dark chocolate you will be getting 30g of sugar, i.e. six cubes or six spoonfuls of sugar.

Now, that’s a lot of sugar, a substance known to be the cause of insulin resistance, glycation and low-grade whole-body inflammation, not to mention tooth decay, gum inflammation and fat accumulation / weight gain.

Is the 25% fat contained in dark chocolate healthy?

Is a food that 25% saturated fat healthy?

100g of 70% dark chocolate also typically contains 25g saturated fat and 42g overall fat.

This is 2.5x times the saturated fat content and 2x times the overall fat percentage of 100g of a fatty rib eye steak.

Sounds crazy, but it’s a fact. And the steak will give you 25g of protein, while dark chocolate will give you six cubes of sugar instead, added to the fat. Grim but true…

Of course those two foods are used for two different purposes, but the point remains the same.

“Have only two squares”

Because of the high sugar and overall saturated fat and calorie content, all the studies that recommend eating dark chocolate as a heart-friendly food, do so only for an intake of 1-2 small chocolate squares.

In this way, people will theoretically receive the benefit from the healthful polyphenols / flavanols contained in dark chocolate, without suffering the consequences of consuming large amounts of sugar, saturated fat and overall calories.

The only problem with this advice is that you don’t take any meaningful amount of flavanols/polyphenols to make any real difference to your health: you have the sweet treat (fine) and that’s it really. No health benefit.

Is dark chocolate fattening? Dark chocolate nutrition facts.

Before we go into further detail regarding the issues raised above (flavanol content, heart health, glycation etc), let’s have a look at the exact macronutrients provided by dark chocolate.

For this article I have used as an example, a quality dark chocolate: Green & Black's Organic 70% Dark Chocolate. The values below are for 100g, i.e. one chocolate bar:

• Energy: 580 calories

• Fat: 42g

  • Of which saturates: 25g

• Carbohydrates: 36g

  • Of which sugars: 29g

• Fibre: 10g

• Protein: 9.1g

Dark chocolate = 42% fat + 30% sugar (doesn’t sound that healthy anymore)

So what do we learn from the above? That dark chocolate contains around ~30% sugar plus another ~5% of other carbs contained in the actual cocoa solids.

But also equally importantly, dark chocolate is 42% fat by weight, so you get a fat + sugar double whammy. To make things worse, about 60% of that fat (i.e. 26% of the whole chocolate) is saturated, known to stimulate fat accumulation and insulin resistance. Combined with the sugar, that causes even more insulin resistance.

Now, some people may say that saturated fat is not as bad as it was previously thought to be, and that may indeed apply for followers of a strict ketogenic diet. However, chocolate is not a keto food - even the 100% chocolate isn’t, due to its other carb content.

In fact, combined with sugar, saturated fat is as bad as it is widely accepted to be - and then some more. Let’s not fool ourselves here.

Hundreds of studies have proven again and again that saturated fat, when combined with sugar and/or starch (starch is what people refer to as “carbs”), is fattening, LDL-cholesterol forming, artery-clogging and insulin resistance-causing.

These are the facts.

So, to put things right and to bust the myth about the healthiness of dark chocolate, we can simply say that 71% of it is made of unhealthy, fattening staff - mainly saturated fat and sugar.

What about the antioxidants / Cocoa flavanols in dark chocolate?

Now, one would say that at least the insulin resistance effect can be counteracted by the insulin-sensitising effect of the “antioxidants” contained in dark chocolate, namely a group of polyphenols called flavanols.

Cocoa flavanols are also known to improve cardiovascular health and help preserve collagen and elastin.

According to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), dark chocolate contains about 109 mg flavanols per 100g. If the cocoa in the chocolate is “dutched”, i.e. alkalinised to make it darker and more appealing, then the flavanol level drops to 53 mg per 100g of chocolate.

To put this into perspective, the EU allows health claims to be made for cocoa products containing flavanols only for a dose of 200mg or higher.

The claim is: “Cocoa flavanols help maintain the elasticity of blood vessels, which contributes to normal blood flow”.

This simply means that to get some tangible cardiovascular benefits you need to consume about 200g of dark chocolate (the good type, not the dutched one). Anything less is still welcome, but too weak and too slow to make any real difference.

Now, 200g of dark chocolate would provide you with 1,200 calories, 60g of saturated fat (basically eight heaped tablespoons of lard, but hey, it’s vegan in origin) and 60g of sugar, i.e. 12 teaspoonfuls of sugar.

It doesn’t take a nutritional genius to understand that to get some good cardiovascular / insulin sensitising / collagen preserving benefits from a 70% dark chocolate you need to first swallow 12 teaspoons of sugar and 4 tablespoons of vegan lard, clogging your arteries, filling up your subcutaneous fat cells (fat) and hypodermal fat cells (cellulite) and reducing insulin sensitivity all over your body.

Let’s get real here. Polyphenols with low sugar and zero fat (as in blueberries for example), are totally different to polyphenols with plenty of saturated fat and sugar. The whole benefit of polyphenols in dark chocolate is undermined by the heaps of fat and sugar contained in it.

The little benefit that studies on dark chocolate show, is exactly that: a little benefit.

It won’t make any significant difference to heart health and it’s just a minor statistically significant result in studies, not real-life significant for your body.

High flavanol cocoa powder, dark chocolate and artery health

The only way to benefit from the - indeed very healthful - qualities of flavanols contained in cocoa/cacao is to consume an unsweetened high-flavanol cocoa powder mixed in milk, vegetable milk, protein shake or smoothie.

That can indeed make a difference, as it can provide you with 50mg of flavanols per 5g teaspoonful of high-flavanol cocoa powder. So with four teaspoonfuls in your drink you can get the required 200mg of flavanols.

Yes, it’s difficult to find a high quality high flavanol cocoa powder, but that’s the only “dark chocolate” I would call healthy.

Personally, I do take high flavanol cocoa powder and I indeed experience very measurable benefits in terms of arterial ‘flow mediated dilation’, as it is called (I have medical equipment that can measure this).

(* Flow mediated dilation measures the degree of elasticity of your arteries.)

A quality, raw cocoa (undutched), defatted normal cocoa powder contains about 0.2% flavanols (5g of the stuff will give you 5mg of flavanols), while high-flavanol cocoa powder contains about 1% (5g will give you 50mg flavanols).

How about high flavanol dark chocolate?

This sounds like a good idea, but there are two problems:

• It is almost impossible to find a quality brand offering a nice tasting high-flavanol dark chocolate

• And a 70% high-flavanol dark chocolate would still contain 30% sugar plus carbs and lots of saturated fat too

• An 85% high-flavanol dark chocolate would just be too bitter - and still contain 15% sugar plus carbs and lots of saturated fat too

Believe me, a defatted high-flavanol cocoa powder in a nice protein shake is the best way to consume cocoa flavanols and enjoy a nice, tasty, healthy chocolate, albeit in drink form.

Dark chocolate and glycation

Sugar is known to cause glycation. Glycation is the damage of proteins, including skin and blood vessel proteins, and is commonly accompanied by inflammation and fibrosis. Glycation is a major cause of ageing and cellulite and it is recently implicated in indirectly causing weight gain too.

So given that dark chocolate contains plenty of sugar (typically 30%), we can easily infer that dark chocolate can cause glycation and therefore ageing, skin looseness and cellulite.

Again, the flavanols in dark chocolate should theoretically be partially protective against glycation (nothing is proven about this combination yet), but the end result would most probably be a net increase in glycation.

There is no point increasing glycation with sugar first and then trying to reduce it with polyphenols. It’s futile.

Does chocolate cause cellulite?

Given that poor blood circulation is a cellulite factor you would expect that cocoa flavanols would benefit cellulite.

However, as mentioned above, the typical dark chocolate contains 42% fat and 30% sugar, which actually can DIRECTLY cause cellulite by inflating fat cells with fat and also indirectly by causing glycation.

Dark chocolate provides valuable antioxidants too, which offer INDIRECT protection from cellulite, but these are just not enough to undo the damage fat and sugar cause.

So, no, dark chocolate is not good for cellulite either.

Of course, milk chocolate and white chocolate definitely cause cellulite, as they contain very low amount of polyphenols.

Can high-flavanol cocoa prevent or reduce cellulite?

Absolutely.

High-flavanol cocoa, without fat and sugar, can inhibit fat accumulation, boost circulation, fight inflammation, reduce glycation neutralise free radicals and support skin firmness - and thereby help reduce or prevent cellulite in 6 different ways.

High-cocoa flavanols are an anti-cellulite active ingredient.

Dark chocolate, high flavanol cocoa, collagen, elastin and skin firmness/elasticity

Talking about skin firmness, dark chocolate can have a mixed effect.

Glycation, sugar and fat accumulation all have a negative effect on skin firmness, while flavanols actually support skin firmness (polyphenols are very well researched regarding their positive effect on collagen and elastin protection and synthesis).

Again, the benefits of flavanols in skin firmness are undermined by sugar and overall calories, so I would not call dark chocolate beneficial for skin firmness.

On the other hand, I would wholeheartedly recommend high flavanol cocoa as an anti-ageing / skin firming food.

Dark chocolate, fibre and protein

Dark chocolate indeed contains a good amount of fibre (10%) to help you be more regular, but then again vegetables, fruits, chia seeds and flax seeds have way more fibre and little in the way of calories - and no sugar and saturated fat.

In terms of protein, dark chocolate is a low protein, high-fat, high-sugar food, containing exactly the same amount of protein as white bread (about 10%) but a lot more fat and plenty of sugar.

I think that says it all.

Milk chocolate nutrition facts

Milk chocolate, typically contains the following (data from Green & Black’s Organic Milk Chocolate):

• Energy: 561 calories (a bit less than dark choc)

• Fat: 36 g (a bit less than dark choc)

  • Of which saturates: 22g (a bit less than dark choc)

• Carbohydrates: 48g (a LOT more than dark choc)

  • Of which sugars: 46g (a LOT more than dark choc)

• Fibre: 2.3g (MUCH less than dark choc)

• Protein: 6.1g (even less than dark choc)

Milk chocolate: even more sugar (around 50%)

So what does the panel above shows us?

That half of milk chocolate is pure sugar: 9 cubes of sugar per 100g bar of chocolate. Then another third of it is pure fat (one fifth of the bar being hard saturated fat). And there is not much fibre or protein left in it, in relation to dark chocolate.

Also, milk chocolate has one-third to one-half the antioxidants of dark chocolate PLUS it contains highly processed milk which is a cause of intolerance for hundreds of millions (if not billions) of people around the world.

All in all, milk chocolate is an unhealthy dessert. There is no notion of healthiness in milk chocolate. It may taste nice and, if made by a good manufacturer, it may be of high quality, but nevertheless that will be a high quality but still unhealthy food.

White chocolate nutrition facts

White chocolate, typically contains the following nutrients (data from Green and Black’s Organic White Chocolate):

• Energy: 581 calories (same as dark choc)

• Fat: 38g (a bit less than dark choc)

  • Of which saturates: 23g

• Carbohydrates: 51g (a LOT more than dark choc)

  • Of which sugars: 51g (a whole LOT more than dark choc)

• Fibre: 0.1g (virtually non-existent)

• Protein: 7.9g (a bit less than dark choc)

White chocolate: same as milk chocolate, i.e. 50% sugar, but with no fibre whatsoever

The panel above shows us that white chocolate is similar to milk chocolate in all respects except from the fact that there is no fibre in it and zero antioxidants / flavanols whatsoever.

So it is even more of an “unhealthy candy” than milk chocolate.

What about 100% dark chocolate? surely i must be amazing for you, because it’s pure cocoa, right?

That’s what I thought 20 years ago.

I used to buy a nice, expensive, high quality, 100% dark chocolate, thinking that I will get antioxidants, pure cocoa, some protein, some fibre and no sugar, to keep me going during the day when I had no time for a proper meal or snack between appointments.

And I was wrong. The 100% dark chocolate:

• did NOT kill my cravings

• did NOT pacify my appetite

• did NOT make me feel good about myself

It was just a heavy food, a burden to my system and at the end of the day I felt “yuck” and with an overpowering need to have a real healthy snack or meal, not a fake “healthy” snack.

The reason I felt like that can be explained by looking at the table below.

100% dark chocolate nutrition facts

The data below are from Montezuma’s 100% dark chocolate bar:

• Energy: 600 calories (a bit more than 70% dark choc)

• Fat: 54g (quite a lot more than 70% dark choc)

  • Of which saturates: 33g (more than 70% dark choc)

• Carbohydrates: 8g (almost one fifth of 70% dark choc)

  • Of which sugars: 0.1g (virtually non existent)

• Fibre: 17g

• Protein: 12g

100% dark chocolate: zero sugar, but still a food containing 54% fat plus some carbs still

Logically, an 100% chocolate bar should have 40% more flavanols than a 70% chocolate bar.

As flavanol content is not something you find on chocolate bar labels, this is not an exact number, as different cocoa varieties and manufacturing processes can affect the level of flavanols in the chocolate.

But let’s assume that 100% dark chocolate, containing 42% more cocoa mass, has 42% more antioxidants. Again, this is of little benefit to health in relation to the 33% saturated and the 54% overall fat content.

If you want to benefit of flavanols for your arteries, skin or cellulite, just have a high flavanol cocoa powder with the beverage of your choice. This would contain 200% more flavanols than 70% dark chocolate - not the mere 40% more that 100% dark chocolate contains.

How much flavanols in dark chocolate, milk chocolate and cocoa powder?

According to the USDA, the flavanol content of different kinds of chocolate and cocoa is as follows:

• 100g of commercial dutched (alkalinised) cocoa powder contains 93 mg of flavanols (0.1%)

• 100g of commercial non-dutched cocoa powder contains 201 mg of flavanols (0.2%)

• On the other hand 100g of high flavanol cocoa powder contains 1,000 (!) mg of flavanols, with very little in the way of fat or carbs (1% flavanols)

• 100g of milk chocolate contains JUST 15(!) mg of flavanols (no benefit here, whatsoever) (0.015%)

• 100g of dutched dark chocolate contains 53 mg of flavanols (0.05%)

• 100g of undutched dark chocolate contains 109 mg of flavanols (0.1%)

• 100g of unsweetened (presumably 100% dark) chocolate contains 208 mg of flavanols (0.2%)

Of course those numbers are not set in stone and are quite often inaccurate averages from commercial products, but they just show a general trend.

The healthiest “chocolates” in the world

So high flavanol cocoa powder is king.

Granted, you can only use around 20g of high flavanol cocoa powder for your drink before it becomes too cocoa-y, but this would still give you 200 mg of flavanols, i.e. double or quadruple that of dark chocolate, but with 21x times (!) less fat (2g) and 12x times (!) less carbs (3g).

Now that’s what I call healthy “chocolate”.

Of course, cocoa powder is not “chocolate” as such, but mixed with a nice beverage (e.g. protein shake with unsweetened almond/rice/oat drink or equivalent) it can provide both health and pleasure.

High flavanol cocoa skincare

Quite a few skincare creams contain cocoa extracts, but the vast majority of those are cheap, crude extracts with almost no flavanols.

A very small number of skincare creams do contain high flavanol cocoa, but again in tiny, infinitesimal quantities.

In contrast, LipoTherapeia’s high flavanol cocoa-based Celluence® Body creams contain 95% purity cocoa flavanols at high concentrations.

Huge difference.

Verdict: sorry, no chocolate is “healthy”, even the 100% ones

So going back to the 100% dark chocolate, with its 54% fat, 100% chocolate is not the solution to getting your antioxidants while having a treat, because it is not even tasty or what one would describe as “a treat”.

Any chocolate, in any shape or form is not “healthy” simply because it is a high saturated fat food. If you want “healthy” and if you want polyphenols (flavanols is a class of polyphenols), eat berries, which contain plenty of polyphenols, plus fibre and water, but with very little sugar and zero fat.

Chocolate is surely pleasurable, and I do love some dark chocolate, but it is not a health food by any stretch of the imagination, even the 100% one.

Dark chocolate vs blueberries vs high flavanol cocoa powder

Dark chocolate is actually a generally unhealthy food and the 40-80 mg of flavanols per 40g portion (4 squares out of 10) of a typical 70% dark chocolate portion is minimal. Especially when compared to blueberries, with their 1120 mg of polyphenols per typical 200g portion.

There are 28x times more polyphenols in a portion of blueberries compared to a portion of dark chocolate.

In fact, not even high flavanol cocoa can compare to blueberries, as you need to consume 112g of high flavanol cocoa powder (absolutely impossible to have so much in one sitting) to get the 1120mg of polyphenols that a reasonable 200g portion of blueberries would provide.

Red wine vs dark chocolate vs high flavanol cocoa powder

Another similar urban myth is that red wine is good for you, as it contains 0.1% polyphenols, same as those in dark choc.

Well, to get the benefit of a typical portion of 200g of blueberries in terms of polyphenols (1120 mg), you need to consume 1.12 litre of red wine - that is exactly 1.5 bottle of red wine! Not that healthy, is it?

Wine does make you feel good indeed (for a couple of hours, at least), and I love some good red wine, as well as some good dark chocolate, but I do not fool myself that either of them is healthy. I eat/drink them knowing that they are unhealthy indulgences.

Now, are red wine and dark chocolate better than vodka drinks of equivalent alcohol content or donuts of equivalent sugar/fat content? Sure they are, and if you are going to have a treat you should prefer red wine or dark chocolate, respectively, not vodka and donuts.

But don’t fool yourself that red wine and choccies are “healthy”. They are merely less unhealthy than vodka and donuts.

Chocolate: sugar rush, dopamine rush, serotonin rush, caffeine rush, phenylethylamine rush

Of course, when we talk about dark chocolate and health, we should not forget caffeine, which no-one thinks about when they think of chocolate.

According to the US government website medline.gov, 100g of chocolate can contain anything between 30-180mg of caffeine, depending on the cocoa content, with 70% or 100% chocolate containing more, milk chocolate containing much less and white chocolate none at all.

• That is a LOT of caffeine (an espresso coffee contains 100 mg of caffeine) and it is responsible to a large extent for the “dark chocolate rush”.

• Of course, we also have the sugar rush (there are 6 teaspoons of sugar in 100g of dark chocolate, let’s not forget)

Plus chocolate contains some things that most people are not aware about:

• Chocolate contains the stimulants phenylethylamine (PEA), dopamine and the feel-good molecule serotonin itself. Basically, dopamine and serotonin are produced by the body due to the reward/pleasure feeling induced by the sugar.

• Plus chocolate contains about 600mg of the diuretic and mild stimulant theobromine (in fact, cocoa powder also contains 1% theobromine, equal to 400mg per 40g serving).

Magnesium content in chocolate

The last line of defence about the healthiness of chocolate is magnesium, a nutrient most people in the West are deficient in.

Dark chocolate contains about 150 mg of magnesium (Mg) per 100g, which is similar to, for example, 180g of boiled, drained spinach (158 mg of Mg).

Spinach, however, comes without all the fat and sugar and with plenty of vitamins and other nutrients.

I rest my case here.

Chocolate snack bars: even more unhealthy

Needless to say that milk chocolate snack bars contain almost no flavanols and lots of extra sugar and other unhealthy, processed ingredients.

All in all chocolate is a cause of extra body fat, insulin resistance, skin damage, low grade inflammation and cellulite…

…and the little content of flavanols in dark chocolate (even less in milk chocolate and chocolate snack bars and none in white chocolate) partially helps in mitigating the damage but it does not eliminate it.

Of course, some indulgence here and there is absolutely fine and even necessary with the stressful lives we live today, as long as we are aware that we indulge and that we don’t fool ourselves that we consume something healthy.

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