There are worse sins than being a chocoholic. Much of the UK鈥檚 chocolate industry was set up by Quakers trying to tempt people away from booze. Now we are hooked on chocolate instead. In the UK, each of us scoffs an estimated 7.5 kilograms every year.
Is that a bad thing? Dark chocolate has been branded a superfood in recent years, after studies showed eating 100 grams boosts heart-protecting antioxidants in the blood for several hours. Milk chocolate, and even dark chocolate consumed with milk, doesn鈥檛 have the same effect 鈥� compounds in the milk seem to bind to the antioxidants and stop the body from absorbing them.
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Weight for weight, milk chocolate has the downside of more fat and calories, too. The easiest way to deal with overindulgence is to exercise, but the effort might make you spit out your Mars bar. To burn off a standard-sized one, you would need to run up flights of stairs for roughly 20 minutes.
A shortcut to having your chocolate cake and eating it is to adopt a fasting diet, which typically entails eating just 500 to 600 calories a day for two days of the week, and whatever you want the rest of the time. One study of over 100 obese women found that dieting this way over six months as sticking to a more conventional calorie-controlled diet 24/7. And fasting led to greater improvements in blood-sugar control.
Still, severely cutting your calorie intake, even for a day or two, isn鈥檛 for everyone. Most chocolate bars are about 30 per cent fat, so reducing that content without compromising the flavour might help. One way is to replace some of the fat by an emulsion of cocoa butter and water. This method, pioneered by French gastronomer Herve This, is practised by chocolatiers such as London-based . 鈥淲ater, having no taste of its own, leaves the consumer to enjoy unadulterated pure chocolate,鈥� he says. Popat鈥檚 delicacies are served up in Michelin-starred restaurants, but you can make your own low-fat version at home using agar (New Scientist, 21 December 2013, p 53). Just make sure you stash them in the fridge well before the craving hits.
Read more: 鈥�Guilty pleasures: Which bad habits can you get away with?鈥�
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淕etting away with chocolate鈥�
