Want to lose weight by eating dark chocolate? Wake up!

Audit expert: Wang Guoyi

Postdoctoral fellow in Nutrition and Food Safety, China Agricultural University

What do you think of when you think of chocolate?

In many people's impressions, chocolate is often associated with words such as "love" and "sweetness". Sweet and delicious chocolate has also become one of the favorite snacks for many people.

Source: pixabay

However, for those who want to lose weight, such delicious chocolate is very high in sugar and fat, and eating too much can easily make you fat.

Therefore, in order to eat delicious food healthily, they turned their attention to "dark chocolate". It is said that this kind of chocolate not only does not make people fat, but also helps to lose weight. Is this true?

What is dark chocolate?

Before explaining the composition of dark chocolate, we need to understand where chocolate comes from.

The raw material for making chocolate is a fruit called cocoa beans. After drying, fermentation and machine grinding, the fruit will form "cocoa paste".

"Cocoa paste" can be separated into cocoa butter and cocoa powder. Combining and processing cocoa butter, cocoa powder, sugar, cream and other materials will produce the chocolate we see.

Source: Baidu Encyclopedia

The history of chocolate development has been hundreds of years, and different countries have different classification standards. The United States divides chocolate into six types, including milk chocolate, sweet chocolate, and skim chocolate, while the United Kingdom divides it into seven types.

Source: Guo Haonan; Tao Hong; Feng Feng; Jiang Pingping; Chu Xiaogang, Nutritional composition of chocolate and current status of its analytical methods, Food Industry, 2015

In my country, there are two classification standards for chocolate. One is based on the auxiliary ingredients, which are divided into chocolate and chocolate products. If auxiliary ingredients such as sugar coating and filling are added, it is a chocolate product.

The other is classified by fats and oils, which are divided into chocolate and cocoa butter substitute chocolate. Cocoa butter is a natural fat with a melting point between 34℃ and 38℃. It can remain solid at room temperature and melts easily in the mouth. Cocoa butter substitute is a man-made fat made by hydrogenation of vegetable oil. It has good stability and is not easily affected by temperature. If the added cocoa butter substitute content exceeds 5%, it is cocoa butter substitute chocolate.

Source: A shopping website - Cocoa butter substitute chocolate

Chocolate without added additives and with less than 5% cocoa butter substitute is "pure chocolate". "Pure chocolate" is divided into dark chocolate, white chocolate and milk chocolate.

The national standard defines dark chocolate as chocolate with a total cocoa solids content of more than 30% . The percentage numbers on the common packaging such as "50% dark chocolate" and "70% dark chocolate" represent the cocoa content in the chocolate.

Therefore, the higher the cocoa content of chocolate, the lower the sugar content in its ingredients. However, does this mean that eating dark chocolate will not make you fat?

Source: pixabay

Can eating dark chocolate help you lose weight?

Although the sugar content in dark chocolate is relatively low, don't forget that the cocoa butter in dark chocolate is real fat.

According to a research data, the energy and fat content of dark chocolate is not significantly lower than that of other chocolates. In every 100 grams of dark chocolate, the total content of sugar and fat is as high as more than 90%.

Source: Guo Haonan; Tao Hong; Feng Feng; Jiang Pingping; Chu Xiaogang, Nutritional composition of chocolate and current status of its analytical methods, Food Industry, 2015

In other words, although dark chocolate does not taste too sweet, it is very high in calories and you will still make you fat if you eat too much!

However, dark chocolate contains caffeine. The higher the cocoa content of dark chocolate (such as 100% dark chocolate), the higher the caffeine content. Moderate intake can reduce our appetite, but whether it can help lose weight depends on personal eating habits.

Whether it is dark chocolate or other types of chocolate, the smooth taste and sweet taste of the food itself are ultimately inseparable from the contribution of fat and sugar. If you really want to eat chocolate, give priority to dark chocolate with cocoa butter.

In addition, you should also learn to read the ingredient list and avoid choosing cocoa butter substitutes. Cocoa butter substitutes contain trans fatty acids, and long-term consumption is not good for cardiovascular health.

Source: pixabay

Dark chocolate cannot help you lose weight. So, how can we lose weight correctly in terms of eating habits?

How to lose weight correctly?

Modern people have various ways to lose weight, in addition to eating dark chocolate, there are also dieting, vegetarian diet, ketogenic diet, etc. These weight loss methods are not suitable for everyone. For most people, they fail to lose weight, but add a lot of burden to the body.

If you want to lose weight correctly, then we need to pay attention to the following points in our daily diet:

1. You must eat staple food. You can increase the intake of coarse grains and reduce the intake of refined white rice and flour. If you don't eat any staple food, although you can lose fat in the short term, you will also lose muscle and protein, which will affect the normal functioning of the human body.

Source: pixabay

Second, you must eat meat. Some people think that vegetarianism is healthier, so they only eat vegetarian food and are unwilling to eat meat. But in fact, the calories of vegetarian food are not necessarily lower than those of lean meat, and vegetarian food lacks essential vitamin B12 for the human body. Long-term vegetarianism can easily cause memory loss.

3. Avoid excessive dieting. Although weight loss requires controlling the body's total calorie intake, excessive dieting and insufficient nutrient intake can easily lead to malnutrition and rebound.

In general, to lose weight correctly, you need to control calorie intake while maintaining a comprehensive and balanced nutritional intake, supplemented by appropriate exercise.

Losing weight is not something that can be achieved overnight. It requires our long-term persistence. If you also want to lose weight, please throw away those so-called "quick weight loss methods". The most important thing is to control your diet and move your legs.