{"id":654,"date":"2011-10-14T08:00:45","date_gmt":"2011-10-14T12:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/doinglifetogether\/?p=654"},"modified":"2012-03-03T12:50:28","modified_gmt":"2012-03-03T17:50:28","slug":"please-pass-the-swedish-chocolate-its-good-for-my-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2011\/10\/please-pass-the-swedish-chocolate-its-good-for-my-health.html","title":{"rendered":"Please Pass The Swedish Chocolate. It&#8217;s Good for My Health!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hand me another chocolate bar, but make it Swedish milk chocolate! Those bars have higher percentages of antioxidant rich cocoa solid than American milk chocolate bars. And when the concentration hits about 30%, it&#8217;s good news for chocolate lovers and our health.<\/p>\n<p>Swedish researchers&#8217; evaluated women who claimed to eat two small chocolate bars a week and found a link to lower level of stroke compared to women who did not eat chocolate bars. Basically, a small amount of chocolate reduced the risk of hemorrhagic and ischemic stroke. You can review the study in the Oct 18th issue of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cardiosource.org\/acc\" target=\"_blank\">Journal of the American College of Cardiology<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The results make sense given past studies have found a reduction of blood pressure among chocolate consumers.\u00a0 Since hypertension relates to stroke, this makes sense.<\/p>\n<p>But before you load up on chocolate treats for Halloween and then justify downing the left overs, be sensible.<\/p>\n<p>1) Note the differences in Swedish and American chocolate. You might want to stick to dark chocolate on this continent. Dark contains more of the antioxidants and is lower on sugar.<\/p>\n<p>2) Note I said the subjects &#8220;claimed&#8221; to eat two bars a week. That is because the study was based on self-reports. People had to accurately report what they ate and well, we don&#8217;t always do that!<\/p>\n<p>3) If you add chocolate to your diet, cut back on other calories. Calories are still calories and can add to weight gain.<\/p>\n<p>That said, bring on the chocolate bars! We need to engage in a little self-care!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hand me another chocolate bar, but make it Swedish milk chocolate! Those bars have higher percentages of antioxidant rich cocoa solid than American milk chocolate bars. And when the concentration hits about 30%, it&#8217;s good news for chocolate lovers and our health. Swedish researchers&#8217; evaluated women who claimed to eat two small chocolate bars a&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":419,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[918],"tags":[451,449,255,455,453,351,83,454,452,450,448],"class_list":["post-654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-relationship-to-food","tag-antioxidants","tag-candy","tag-chocolate","tag-chocolate-lover","tag-dark-chocolate","tag-eating","tag-health-2","tag-hypertention","tag-milk-choclate","tag-stroke","tag-swedish-chocolate"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Please Pass The Swedish Chocolate. It&#039;s Good for My Health!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2011\/10\/please-pass-the-swedish-chocolate-its-good-for-my-health.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Please Pass The Swedish Chocolate. It&#039;s Good for My Health!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Hand me another chocolate bar, but make it Swedish milk chocolate! Those bars have higher percentages of antioxidant rich cocoa solid than American milk chocolate bars. And when the concentration hits about 30%, it&#8217;s good news for chocolate lovers and our health. Swedish researchers&#8217; evaluated women who claimed to eat two small chocolate bars a&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2011\/10\/please-pass-the-swedish-chocolate-its-good-for-my-health.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Doing Life Together\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/drlindamintle\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-10-14T12:00:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-03-03T17:50:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Linda Mintle\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@drlindamintle\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Please Pass The Swedish Chocolate. It's Good for My Health!","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2011\/10\/please-pass-the-swedish-chocolate-its-good-for-my-health.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Please Pass The Swedish Chocolate. It's Good for My Health!","og_description":"Hand me another chocolate bar, but make it Swedish milk chocolate! Those bars have higher percentages of antioxidant rich cocoa solid than American milk chocolate bars. And when the concentration hits about 30%, it&#8217;s good news for chocolate lovers and our health. Swedish researchers&#8217; evaluated women who claimed to eat two small chocolate bars a&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2011\/10\/please-pass-the-swedish-chocolate-its-good-for-my-health.html","og_site_name":"Doing Life Together","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/drlindamintle\/","article_published_time":"2011-10-14T12:00:45+00:00","article_modified_time":"2012-03-03T17:50:28+00:00","author":"Linda Mintle","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@drlindamintle","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2011\/10\/please-pass-the-swedish-chocolate-its-good-for-my-health.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2011\/10\/please-pass-the-swedish-chocolate-its-good-for-my-health.html","name":"Please Pass The Swedish Chocolate. It's Good for My Health!","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-10-14T12:00:45+00:00","dateModified":"2012-03-03T17:50:28+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/#\/schema\/person\/1e16a9c7332cfcc5b5d89e4ba3a36142"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2011\/10\/please-pass-the-swedish-chocolate-its-good-for-my-health.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2011\/10\/please-pass-the-swedish-chocolate-its-good-for-my-health.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2011\/10\/please-pass-the-swedish-chocolate-its-good-for-my-health.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Please Pass The Swedish Chocolate. It&#8217;s Good for My Health!"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/","name":"Doing Life Together","description":"Relationship Doctor, Mental Health, Emotional Wellness, Relationship Advice &amp; Entertainment","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/#\/schema\/person\/1e16a9c7332cfcc5b5d89e4ba3a36142","name":"Linda Mintle","description":"It is rare that a trained academic who speaks passionately to the heart of people providing real answers to real life problems is so relatable. Dr. Linda\u2019s fun personality and expertise comes through whether she\u2019s helping her audience stress less or make peace with their thighs! Dr. Linda has her Ph.D. in Urban Health and Clinical Psychology and is a national expert on mental health. She has specialized in the treatment of eating disorders, anxiety, depression and pain management. With 30 years of clinical experience working with couples, families and individuals, she brings her common-sense approach to people who want to live in positive mental health. Dr. Linda is also a bestselling author with 21 book titles to her credit, a radio host of the Dr. Linda Mintle show, professor, national speaker, winner of the Mom\u2019s Choice Award, a national news consultant, featured writer for Beliefnet and hosts her own website. Her academic appointments keep her abreast of current research in her areas of expertise. Her media experience includes seven years as the resident expert for ABC Family\u2019s Living the Life television show and regular appearances on network television and radio. It is often said that being with Dr. Linda is like having coffee with a friend. She makes the complicated issues of relationships and mental health easy to understand and applicable to everyday living. The ease she has with people, coupled with her clinical training and experience makes her a sought-after speaker on college campuses, conferences and special events. Whether she is doing a TV skit with Tim Conway or discussing teen violence with Queen Latifa, Dr. Linda will entertain, educate and integrate faith and mental health in everyday living. Check out her latest book Hope and Healing for Anxiety, a whole-person approach to eliminate anxiety. .","sameAs":["https:\/\/drlindamintle.com\/","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/drlindamintle\/","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/drlindamintle\/","https:\/\/x.com\/drlindamintle"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/author\/lmintle"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/419"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":660,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654\/revisions\/660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}