4 health benefits of cocoa you didn’t know

What are the benefits of cocoa? Cocoa has been a food present in human culture for many years, since 400 BC, according to some literature.

Its use has always been wide, versatile and very well used in any society, due to its characteristic of not being so palatable and often generating a feeling of “absence” of taste, cocoa manages to fit in very well in any preparation.

Many people say that cocoa can improve blood pressure, skin quality and even try to assess the quality of life of those who consume it. However, what can we really conclude about cocoa when we talk about health benefits?

You like a chocolate, but I’m sure you don’t know that much about the main ingredient in that product, right?

So come with us so you don’t fall into any misunderstandings out there.

The purported benefits of cocoa

Everyone tries to correlate cocoa with certain potential benefits, often skipping over the very important word: possible.

In a systematic review (the highest degree of scientific evidence for correlating and analyzing the data present in the literature) with a large population, a variety of randomized clinical trials of all kinds (which ends up greatly expanding our population) and with analysis the risk of bias (i.e., plausible trends).

For each parameter analyzed, it was possible to observe that for most of the observations on cardiovascular health, skin, blood glucose, cognitive performance and several other points, the risk of bias was moderate to high and the degree of evidence moderate or low.

This happens because during the study process, there is no isolation of the necessary scientific variables (diet, exercise, sleep, rest, mental health, among others) to affirm that that factor is responsible.

Therefore, we go on to say that a study like this, with bias and little evidence, points out that there is an indication that cocoa may have some contribution to these factors, however, more studies are needed to demonstrate something like this.

So, in order not to leave you helpless, we’re going to bring you what we can really suggest as the benefits of cocoa in natural .

Contains bioactive compounds

Cocoa is rich in compounds that do not provide energy to our body, but play a very important role in its maintenance and functioning.

These bioactive cocoa compounds are called anthocyanins, anthocyanidins and proanthocyanins. Each of these names that seem to have come directly from a chemistry book (lol), are capable of acting in preventive actions of the organism, with an antioxidant character and it is studied that even anti-inflammatory and anticancer.

May lower blood triglycerides

Some notes suggest that cocoa could reduce the level of circulating triglycerides in people who have this altered blood marker. However, due to the short duration of the studies and an unclear or high risk of bias, further analyzes in this area are still needed.

Main benefits of cocoa is, It is a source of Vitamin C

For every 100g of raw cocoa , we find a measure of approximately 13.6 mg of vitamin C, which puts cocoa in the list of foods that are sources of this type of vitamin.

Vitamin C is very important to regulate the oxidant activity of our organism, without allowing the oxygen agent to cause unwanted damage in our body.

In addition, it is very important in the production of collagen (a protein that makes up the structure of our skin, ligaments and tendons), assists in the absorption of non-hemi iron (without the hemi structure, therefore, from a vegetable source) in the intestine and even contributes to the proper functioning of the immune system.

What has cocoa been associated with?

Its role has been associated with the improvement of cognitive performance, through the improvement of verbal memory in one study, however, other attempts have not found such a conclusion.

Cocoa could still be involved with improving the feeling of well-being, associating it with the perception of quality of life. However, when evaluating this perception of quality of life in a study, no significant difference was observed with the control group (the one that did not use cocoa in the diet).

It is worth noting that cocoa compounds can participate in the formation of serotonin, but having more capacity or raw material to produce such a substance, and often producing it, will not result directly in improving someone’s quality of life or in the perception of good. -being, so influenced by the environment.

Cocoa is a very versatile food, easy to include in one’s diet and with a promising future in the world of science. More variables need to be considered, however, this food is worth being present in your food routine.

If you want to know how to enter it, here are some tips:

• 70% cocoa chocolate;
• banana cupcake with cocoa;
• apple pie with cocoa cream frosting;
• Avocado Cocoa Mug Cake;
• Chocolate shake without added sugars with higher cocoa content;
• Belgian Chocolate Cashew Nuts

If you want to find out about other products with a certain amount of cocoa, we recommend trying out our range of spreads with dark chocolate without added sugar.