Happy Chocolate Day 2018: Dark, Milk or White- Which Chocolate is Good for You?

Gifting chocolates is generally an expression of love, gratitude, joy and celebration, but for Valentine's Day, chocolates are indispensable. If you feel love as sweet and delicious as a fine quality chocolate, you've got to show it by gifting your partner a box of their favorite chocolate candies. Chocolate day 2018 is the third day of the Valentine week and as people around the world turn to this foolproof and time-tested symbol of romantic love, we wonder why exactly this food enjoys such a wide appeal. Well for one, it's delicious and goes well with almost anything and everything. For another, it has been proven to be nutritious, when consumed in small quantities on a regular basis.

Some people even believe that having chocolate for breakfast might be good for health. The benefits of chocolate come from cocoa beans that it's derived from. According to a report on a study conducted on the benefits of cocoa by National Center for Biotechnology Information, "Chocolate is best known as an indulgent confection, but historically it has also been consumed for its purported healing properties." But as we all know, there are many types of chocolates, depending upon the amount of cocoa solids present in them. The most common ones are- milk, dark and white chocolates. (Also Read: Here's Where You Can Find the Best Chocolates in Delhi!)

While dark chocolate has the most amounts of cocoa solids, milk chocolate has relatively lesser cocoa. On the other hand, white chocolate has no cocoa solids at all, but instead is made from milk, sugar and cocoa butter. In some countries, milk chocolate is not allowed to be called 'chocolate' due to the absence of cocoa in it. So which type of chocolate is the healthiest for you?

Dark Chocolate is considered to be the most nutritious among the three, due to the presence of good amounts of cocoa in it. The report by NCIB says, "Cocoa contains more phenolic antioxidants than most foods. Flavonoids, including catechin, epicatechin, and procyanidins predominate in antioxidant activity." Antioxidants, as you may know, fight inflammation in the body and prevent formation of free radicals that might turn cells cancerous. Antioxidants aid weight loss and are also responsible for a healthy and youthful skin. Hence, dark and milk chocolate win out over white chocolate, due to the presence of cocoa solids in them.

As the NCBI report points out, white chocolate's main ingredient cocoa butter 'contains significant amounts of fatty acids'. Extrapolating on the harmful effects of fatty acids present in white chocolate, the report says, "..saturated fatty acid consumption has been associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease as saturated fatty acids elevate total cholesterol and LDL." Therefore, white chocolate is the least nutritious of the three kinds of chocolates.

Happy Chocolate Day 2018!