The Right Kind of Dark Chocolate Makes Our Brain Secrete Endorphins

Chocolate is made from plants, cacao to be precise, which means it contains many of the health benefits of dark vegetables. These benefits are from flavonoids, which act as antioxidants. Antioxidants protect the body from aging caused by free radicals, which can cause damage that leads to heart disease.

Dark chocolate contains a large number of antioxidants (nearly 8 times the number found in strawberries). Flavonoids also help release blood pressure through the production of nitric oxide, and balance certain hormones in the body. Now, hormonal balance is crucial to good health because if we overproduce hormones we over burden our liver as well as our bowels and those "used" hormones won't be discharged from our bodies causing several health issues.
Favonoids are compounds found in fruits, vegetables that have diverse beneficial biochemical and antioxidant effects. Plus Dark chocolate is the only food that makes our brain produce endorphins.

Chocolate boosts serotonin - our brain's antidepressant - Chocolate also stimulates the secretion of endorphins, producing a pleasurable sensation Endorphins naturally flood the brain during physical exertion, creating "runners high."

Endorphins are among the brain chemicals known as neurotransmitters, which function to transmit electrical signals within the nervous system. At least 20 types of endorphins have been demonstrated in humans. Endorphins can be found in the pituitary gland, in other parts of the brain, or distributed throughout the nervous system. In addition to decreased feelings of pain, secretion of endorphins leads to feelings of euphoria, modulation of appetite, release of sex hormones, and enhancement of the immune response. With high endorphin levels, we feel less pain and fewer negative effects of stress.

Go figure, you get from chocolate some of the benefits you can only get from drugs, but......... chocolate is legal, healthy and non addictive. Imagine that decadent creamy delicious dark chocolate (packed with antioxidants) melting in your mouth while you get all the health benefits dark veggies give you, only it's a lot more good, fun and very much easier to make your kids eat it.

But, beware! Not all chocolate is created equal:

To obtain all the benefits chocolate has to offer we need the right kind, it has to be at least 70% cold pressed cocoa made with un processed, unalkalized cacao, and natural un processed sweeteners (we want the benefits, not the fat and calories).

So, forget about milk chocolate and never ever eat white chocolate, it is actually not even chocolate, it is just butter with sugars and artificial flavors.

http://www.chocolate-genie.com

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