How can I overcome my craving for chocolate?

To overcome a craving for chocolate, feeding it with chocolate may actually be the solution! Dietician Ashley Koff, RD, discusses the healthy benefits of eating dark chocolate and describes the valuable nutrients it contains.

Transcript

00:00

While there's a tiny amount of caffeine in chocolate, there's actually something else. There's theobromine, which is a stimulant. It gives you a little bit of a boost.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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I have so many people that say to me, oh, my gosh, I crave chocolate all the time. I've got to get rid of it. I've got to overcome it.

00:22

Well you know, I'm here to tell you that actually, chocolate may not be the problem. In fact, chocolate may be the very solution to your chocolate

00:32

craving. And that is, with good quality chocolate that actually has a fair amount of the chocolate in there--

00:38

we call that cacao. And if it has 65% or more of the cacao in there, then that actually is delivering one amazing nutrient.

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And that is the mineral magnesium. And magnesium actually goes inside of our cells. I call it mother nature's anti-stress mineral or mother

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nature's muscle relaxant. It goes inside our cells and says, hey, it's going to be OK. And a lot of times, when we're turning to chocolate,

01:01

that's what we're looking for. We may also be turning to chocolate because we need a little bit of stimulant boost. And while there's a tiny amount of caffeine in chocolate,

01:09

there's actually something else. There's theobromine, which is a stimulant. It gives you a little bit of a boost. When you take that and you have the magnesium,

01:17

though, you don't have a stimulant like you have if you just have coffee. You actually have something that's going to be a little bit easier. So what's going to happen is you're not

01:24

going to go high and then low, you're just going to go, oh, yeah, I'm good, if I have that chocolate. One of the other things you can do

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is actually boost your chocolate intake with more magnesium, with things like sunflower seeds or almonds or almond butter.

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In fact, I like to take an ounce of dark chocolate and actually have a tablespoon of almond butter with it. And I call that my homemade magnesium cup.

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I think you'll enjoy it. [AUDIO LOGO]