Candy Dish Blog

Not a day goes by that I don’t hear about some new study linking chocolate consumption to heart health.  No seriously, I get these daily pubmed updates e-mailed to me. They’re great. You should try them.  Oh, what’s that?  Normal people don’t read the latest scientific abstracts for fun? Oh well, you don’t need to be a nerd like me to know what’s going on with chocolate and health, as it is science anyone can bite into.

Many studies in both humans and rodents have observed lower deaths due to heart disease in chocolate consumers compared to non-consumers of chocolate.  This is an exciting and interesting phenomenon for us chocolate lovers, but certainly inspires wonder as to why this association exists.  Tons of scientists are asking the same question, hence the growing body of research filling my inbox.

Results from most studies looking at blood pressure and chocolate consumption show that flavanols (the antioxidants in chocolate) reduce blood pressure and risk for hypertension.  Studies have also found that these antioxidants fight inflammation in the heart muscles, leading to overall better heart health.  Meanwhile, stearic acid, one of the fats in chocolate, is thought to have a positive benefit on blood cholesterol levels.  These examples reflect some of the most common conclusions. However, scientists are coming up with new ideas about how chocolate might be beneficial to the heart all the time.

So when your sweetie gives you a box of chocolate from their heart on Valentine’s Day, remember it just might help out yours.

Editor’s note: Yes, we know it’s not Tuesday. In the midst of the blizzard coming through the DC area, some things slipped by us. I will continue to blame the oompa loompas until someone can legitimately point a finger my way.

Woven heart and passion fruit chocolates by jamescronin.

Michelle Obama is set to discuss her initiative to combat childhood obesity. Susan wrote about this last week. We are committed to seeing our nation’s future as healthy and sustainable with healthy, happy children who learn to make sensible choices that carry on into adulthood. To quote Susan:

NCA takes seriously the First Lady’s interest in healthy children. We hope the emphasis will be on positive incentives to create healthy lifestyles including encouraging physical activity, wonderful inspiring incentives to encourage increased consumption of tasty fruits and vegetables and initiatives to discourage overconsumption of foods and beverages.

We also hope that the First Lady and other food policy leaders will continue to acknowledge that there is a place for small pleasures, like candy, in the lives of children and adults. As most diet programs acknowledge it’s the little pleasures that help us achieve lasting change and good health.

Update: See this article on ABC’s Good Morning America.

Watch the speech, to be broadcast at noon today:

Update: Broadcast removed after it was over.

In the last few U.S. administrations the First Ladies all have had serious agendas.  As a former librarian Laura Bush was known for her efforts to encourage children’s literacy.  First Lady Hilary Clinton ’s tag line was “It takes a village” as she encouraged public private partnerships as part of a “global village” concept of assistance to underdeveloped regions of the world.  She has continued that interest as U.S. Secretary of State.

Many of us in the Washington area have been wondering when First Lady Michelle Obama was going to declare her agenda.  A  hospital administrator before becoming our current First Lady, she’s also a devoted mom to two young children. Her background in health administration and her personal role as a mom has helped define her agenda which has been rolled out over the last few weeks.  Mrs. Obama is joining forces with two respected health care leaders, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin to “help Americans lead healthier lives through better nutrition, regular physical activity and by encouraging communities to support healthy choices.”   The First Lady says she will launch a major initiative on childhood obesity in the next few weeks stating “today’s epidemic of childhood obesity is unacceptable.”   She notes that the prevalence of obesity has tripled among children and adolescents from 1980 to 2004.

Along with the U.S.  Surgeon General the First Lady would like to see changes in community, home, child care settings and schools to allow individuals to make healthy choices.  According to a news release , likely  practical applications of this initiative include “the limitation of advertisements of less healthy foods and  beverages” ; reducing  consumption of products with added sugars and appealing healthy food and beverage options in child care and school settings.  The First Lady carefully refers to childhood obesity as an “epidemic” threatening America’s “quality and years of healthy life.”

NCA takes seriously the First Lady’s interest in healthy children. We hope the emphasis will be on positive incentives to create healthy lifestyles including encouraging physical activity, wonderful  inspiring incentives  to encourage increased consumption of  tasty fruits and vegetables and initiatives to discourage overconsumption of foods and beverages.

We also hope that the First Lady and other food policy leaders will continue to acknowledge  that there is a place for small pleasures, like candy, in the lives of children and adults. As most  diet programs  acknowledge it’s the little pleasures that help us achieve lasting change and good health.

If you’re reading this blog I’m going to assume you are a candy lover.  I’m also going to assume you have an interest in food.  What’s your food agenda?  What do you do to keep yourself fit and healthy?

Michelle Obama by Story Accents.

Have you noticed the sizes of treats at the movies? Let’s all keep in mind that package size should not dictate an appropriate level of consumption. Theater candies are best shared with your movie going compatriots. CSPI recently wrote about food and beverages available at the movies. Here’s what we have to say: Eat candy as an enjoyable part of life, in moderation. Read the nutrition facts on all food packages and make informed decisions about what and how much to consume to maintain a healthy diet.

NCA’s official response:

Just like a night at the movies, candy and chocolate are fun treats that add a little pleasure to our lives. Consumers enjoy candy when they celebrate, relax and have fun with family and friends.

Less than two percent of consumers’ caloric intake comes from candy, proving that individuals realize candy is an occasional treat. When it comes to candy, consumers always know what they are getting, as candy products are clearly labeled. There are a variety of candy and chocolate options to fit every taste and lifestyle including small, “snack size” or “bite size” confections as well as low-fat, non-fat and sugar free candy products. Larger theater style packages, clearly labeled as to their portion sizes, are meant to be shared with a group of friends or family while viewing a movie or event or participating in the many shared experiences of our lives together.

Cinema by Emmanuel Tabard.

America’s dairy farmers and milk processors have teamed up to produce a new campaign aimed at keeping chocolate milk available to kids in schools. The Raise Your Hand for Chocolate Milk campaign comes on the heels of evolving legislation designed to limit or eliminate soda and other sugary drinks in schools. The campaign maintains that children love chocolate milk, no surprise here, for its flavor. They say that removing chocolate milk from the lunch menu will drive kids to other sweet drinks, and not regular white milk.

Kids can get a good amount of the goodness of milk in flavored milk options, and that is what the point is. They love it for the flavor and parents love the nutritional value of chocolate milk. Even for older kids, chocolate milk has been shown to have benefits. Researchers at George Mason University and Indiana University have found that drinking chocolate milk after exercising helps muscles heal and rebuild just as effectively as the popular sports drinks do.

“[Reduced-fat chocolate milk] contains 170 total calories, with 29 grams of carbohydrates and 8 grams of protein, a 3.6-1 ratio. Optimal recovery ratio for carbs to protein is between 3-1 and 4-1,” Cheryl Zonkowski, director of sports nutrition at the University of Florida, said. Other valuable nutrients found in milk include vitamins A, D, B-6 and B-12, niacin, riboflavin, thiamin, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and zinc.

Here are the top five arguments from the Raise Your Hand for Chocolate Milk campaign:

• Milk provides nutrients essential for good health and kids will drink more when it’s flavored.
• Flavored milk contains the same nine essential nutrients as white milk and is a healthful alternative to soft drinks.
• Drinking lowfat or fat free white or flavored milk helps kids get the 3 daily servings of milk recommended by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, and provides three of the five “nutrients of concern” that children do not get enough of – calcium, potassium and magnesium as well as vitamin D.
• Children who drink flavored milk meet more of their nutrient needs; do not consume more added sugar, fat or calories; and are not heavier than non-milk drinkers.
• Lowfat chocolate milk is the most popular milk choice in schools and kids drink less milk (and get fewer nutrients) if it’s taken away.

Chocolate Milk by hleo.

Ever wonder what makes chocolate taste so good? The answer, apart from chocolate’s extraordinarily diverse array of flavor compounds, is the same answer to what makes just about anything taste good: the fat. Though fat alone is usually devoid of flavor, it acts to enhance just about anything with which it is paired.

The fat in chocolate is cocoa butter. Cocoa beans are composed of 53% cocoa butter, which is separated from ground cocoa beans (known as chocolate liquor due to its liquidy consistency) by pressing through a metal sieve under high pressure. The by-product of this process is especially celebrated in the coming winter months—cocoa! After pressing, cocoa butter is then reunited more chocolate liquor and sugar to make the fabulous substance we know as chocolate.

In addition to bolstering chocolate flavor, cocoa butter is also responsible for chocolate’s unique melting profile and delightful mouth feel. Chocolate melts at precisely 96.8 degrees Fahrenheit because of cocoa butter’s elegant composition. Most fats, such as dairy fat for example, are made up of dozens of different types of fatty acids, each with a specific melting point. Think of butter melting on the stove…the clear yellow part is the first to liquefy, followed by the turbid white part. Cocoa butter is composed simply of three fatty acids: oleic acid, palmitic acid, and stearic acid, all with similar melting points and for this reason chocolate exhibits a very narrow melting range.

Stearic acid, one of cocoa butter’s fatty acid trio, is most definitely saturated in terms of its hydrocarbon structure but has been shown to have a neutral (and in some studies, positive) effect on blood cholesterol levels. This was a hot topic of discussion at the USDA’s 2010 Dietary Guidelines Committee meeting last week, a meeting held every five years to revise USDA’s nutritional recommendations. The experts reviewed data on stearic acid, concluding it to be cholesterol neutral and debating the merits of a more health-oriented nutritional labeling plan.

Some of you might be thinking, “Yeah yeah, we all love fat too but isn’t it one of those no-no foods, not to be celebrated and praised, but rather avoided and renounced?” Fat is pretty much the most calorie-dense substance nature could come up with, a characteristic less appreciated in today’s food-secure environment than previous times of human existence, and as such needs to be consumed in moderation.

Furthermore, overconsumption of some fats raises harmful cholesterol levels in the blood, eventually leading to negative effects on cardiovascular health. The distinction between cholesterol-raising and cholesterol-lowering or neutral fats is usually communicated by the degree of saturation, a characteristic of a fat’s chemical structure rather than healthful attributes. Saturated fat is warned to be cholesterol-raising and unsaturated fat is lauded as cholesterol-lowering or neutral. As with many scientific communications, this is an oversimplification of the truth to the extent that it might be misleading.

However, rest assured that stearic acid, part of the goodness of chocolate, breaks the mold for this rule of “saturated fat equals bad for you.” Don’t think that a chocolate bar is going to cure you of anything more than a snacktime hunger, but don’t be afraid of it either.

Chocolate by rachel is coconut&lime.

“Eating candy or other sugary, starchy foods and leaving that food on your teeth is what will rot your teeth,” Bob Glissmann, a staff writer for the Omaha World-Herald, writes. This is an important clarification to an issue misunderstood by most people. It’s not so much what you eat that determines whether you get cavities; it’s how you take care of your teeth.

When you eat anything starchy or sugary, your saliva starts to break the substance down immediately, creating acids that can deteriorate the enamel on your teeth, and if left alone can cause cavities. The best way to reduce the likelihood of cavities is to:

• Rinse your mouth with water after eating to remove as much acid and residual food as possible.
• Brush and floss after each meal, as well as in the morning and evening.
• If you have children, supervise their tooth brushing. Many kids lack the dexterity to brush well on their own, so it pays to sit with them through this exercise.

So the bottom line on candy is to enjoy it in moderation, and then brush your teeth. The same guidelines go for sugary drinks. Enjoy, then take care of your teeth.

If you still want to get rid of that leftover Halloween candy, follow Susan’s advice of getting in touch with Soldiers’ Angels or else call your dentist. Many dentists are participating in candy buy-back programs. It could get your child a few dollars for his pocket and often the candy is given to a good cause, such as homeless shelters or troops overseas.

Plush Teeth by abductos.