The Healing Powers of Chocolate

303 Pages·2010·1.43 MB·English

by  Cal Orey

Advance Praise for The Healing Powers of Chocolate

“The powerful polyphenols in dark chocolate are a 21st-century health food—
your Rx for longevity!”
—Karlis Ullis, M.D., Medical Director of the Sports Medicine and Anti-Aging
Medical Group, Santa Monica, CA

“A fascinating read full of amazing anecdotes and edgy information. Orey’s
book entertains while sharing new ways to pair fine chocolate and quality extra
virgin olive oil in homemade recipes, from appetizers and entrees to sauces and
desserts.”
—Gemma Sanita Sciabica, author of Cooking with California Olive Oil

“Fine chocolate is about taste, style, and integrity, and fine chocolate is the
medium for our message. It is delightful to find an author who understands all
this!”
—John Down and Joe Guiliano, founders of Christopher Norman Chocolates

“To appreciate the ultimate aphrodisiac, read this stimulating book.”
—Dr. Ava Cadell, author and founder of Loveology University

“Chocolate is a taste of divine ecstasy on Earth. It is our sensual communion.
Orey’s journalistic style and efforts share this insight with readers around the
world.”
—Jim Walsh, founder of Intentional Chocolate

“ This book blends my two favorite things: chocolate and romance (not
necessarily in that order). This book will rev up your romance and titillate your
sensibilities. Treat yourself and your partner to all the truth about chocolate
that’s fit to print!”
—Larry James, Wedding Officiant, Author,
www.CelebrateIntimateWeddings.com
Books by Cal Orey
The Healing Powers of Vinegar
Doctors’ Orders
202 Pets’ Peeves
The Healing Powers of Olive Oil

Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation
THE HEALING POWERS OF
Chocolate
CAL OREY
KENSINGTON BOOKS
www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents Books by Cal Orey
Title Page
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
PART 1 - A TIME FOR CHOCOLATE
CHAPTER 1 - The Power of Chocolate
CHAPTER 2 - A Genesis of Chocolate
PART 2 - CHOCOLATE
CHAPTER 3 - A Historical Testimony
CHAPTER 4 - Where Are the Secret Ingredients?
CHAPTER 5 - Why Is Chocolate So Healthy?
CHAPTER 6 - The French Attitude
PART 3 - OTHER NATURAL FORBIDDEN FOODS
CHAPTER 7 - Chocolate’s Favorite Friends
CHAPTER 8 - Nuts About Chocolate
CHAPTER 9 - Matchmaking Chocolate and Wine
PART 4 - YOUTH IN A CUP
CHAPTER 10 - A Cuppa Coffee and Chocolat
CHAPTER 11 - A Toast to Hot Cocoa and Long Life!
PART 5 - CHOCOLATE CURES
CHAPTER 12 - Home Remedies from Your Kitchen
PART 6 - FUTURE CHOCOLATE
CHAPTER 13 - The Chocolate Craze
CHAPTER 14 - Chocolate Beautiful
CHAPTER 15 - Chocolatiers, Tasting Bars, and Tours
CHAPTER 16 - Chocolate Is Not for Everyone: Some Bittersweet
Views
CHAPTER 17 - The Joy of Cooking with Chocolate
PART 7 - CHOCOLATE RECIPES
CHAPTER 18 - Chocolate Buon Appetito!
PART 8 - CHOCOLATE RESOURCES
Where Can You Buy Chocolate?
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Copyright Page
Notes
Foreword
Cal Orey is amazing. In The Healing Powers of Chocolate, she takes you on a
complete tour of our favorite dietary decadence. But don’t be fooled by the title.
Yes, she does canvass all the nutritional reasons you need to treat chocolate as a
health food on the order of broccoli and Brussels sprouts (as if you needed
another reason). But she also delivers the history of this “food of the gods,”
showing you chocolate’s many home remedies, how to cook with it, what wine
to pair with it, and even where to buy it.
If you’re still struggling with the fundamental question Is chocolate virtue or
vice?, The Healing Powers of Chocolate will clear that up for you. Certainly,
you may have to turn your thinking upside down, but that is something we, as a
culture, are more than ready to do.
For example, I give “chocolate eating lessons” for major U.S. corporations
through my company, Mediterranean Wellness. I love saying that phrase. Slowly,
clearly, with a matter-of-fact expression—“cho-co-late eating lessons”—and
waiting to watch the face in front of me screw up sideways, wondering when I’m
going to say, “No, ha-ha, just kidding!”
These cognitive contortions are driven by our cultural assumptions about
chocolate: it’s a candy, a decadence, an evil fattening siren that lures us daily
into our personal and national obesity epidemic. People come up to me all the
time and say, “If I could just give up chocolate, I’d be able to stay on my diet.”
It turns out, however, that eating chocolate is not the problem; it’s the solution,
hence, the lessons. In fact, when you observe eating behaviors of healthy
cultures, like those of the French, you see that they eat chocolate all the time but
don’t suffer weight and health problems. In my first book, The Fat Fallacy, I
first detailed what these people are doing compared to Americans—who are
living on cardboard-flavored, low-fat food products, with three times more heart
attacks, and a national obesity epidemic.
Somebody, somewhere is on the wrong page.
CHOCOLATE WILL IMPROVE OUR CULTURE OF HEALTH
What we in the United States are missing is the fact that chocolate is a perfect
metaphor for what healthy cultures are doing right and we, by contrast, are doing
completely wrong. Rather than running from the chocolate, we should embrace
it with both arms.
First of all, chocolate is an incredible health food. When you think of Brussels
sprouts, celery sticks, and spinach, add chocolate to the list. It is an antioxidant;
it is an antiplatelet, like aspirin; it raises the good HDL cholesterol, lowers the
bad LDL cholesterol; and it helps prevent tumors from spreading. You need
chocolate every day.
That said, keep in mind that the health benefits are conferred from the cocoa
itself. Thus, the darker the chocolate, the more cocoa it contains, and the better it
is for you. And this is particularly true if you’re concerned about your heart
health.
Diabetics also have a reason to cheer for dark chocolate, because the relative
concentrations of cocoa are like buckets in a well—when one goes up, the other
goes down. So a chocolate high in cocoa will be low in sugar. This is good news
for those who are concerned about keeping insulin swings to a minimum.
Yes, chocolate is perhaps a good choice for improving your heart health and
insulin control, but what about the chocoholic? The average person who just
likes ... loves ... fantasizes daily about ... chocolate? This person is likely most
concerned about the effect chocolate can have on his or her weight.
Again, a cultural perspective sheds some much needed light. Americans eat
roughly 10 pounds of chocolate per person per year. The Swiss lead the world in
chocolate consumption per capita, at 22 pounds per person per year. The
American obesity rate is roughly three times that of the Swiss, but we eat less
than half as much chocolate as they do. Certainly, many factors conspire to
produce our rampant obesity problems, but chocolate consumption is not a
health liability for them.
Perhaps the reason is that dark chocolate is low in sugar and includes healthy
vegetable oils that help keep your insulin levels steady. When these levels are
stable, you find that you’re just less hungry between meals. This makes you
consume less, which helps you control your calories, which helps you control
your weight. And all you did was “love on” some delicious, high-quality
chocolate (which also is something of a food Casanova, containing a natural
“love drug,” providing feel-good feelings similar to those when you are in love).
HOW TO KEEP CHOCOLATE A HEALTH FOOD
Even with all of this wonderful news about chocolate, there is a strong caveat.
The biological benefits for your heart, blood sugar, weight, and mood are dose
dependent, which pulls us back to “chocolate eating lessons.” You get the health
benefits of chocolate only when you eat in control. There is nothing on this
planet that you cannot overconsume, instantly changing a healthy food into an
unhealthy one, including dark chocolate.
So when you eat your chocolate, you must start with high-quality dark
chocolate that makes you basically moan out loud. Audible groaning is a good
thing. Then remember, no biting or chewing your chocolate. The way you make
this love affair last as long as possible is to leave it on your palate for as many
luscious, lingering minutes as you possibly can.
We’ve adapted this sumptuous method of eating chocolate into a full
curriculum—the Mediterranean Wellness PATH program (the book form is The
French Don’t Diet Plan)—which lowers weight, cholesterol, and controls blood
sugar for individuals and corporations nationally.
Basically, eating this way controls portions for you as you become sated prior
to working your way to the end of the 70 percent cocoa Belgian bar of
wonderfulness. Controlling your portions in this way—by taking your time,
choosing high quality, and savoring the flavor of your food—is how chocolate
becomes a health boon, not a health disaster; a heart-healthy snack, rather than a
contributor to a coronary.
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE (AND A LITTLE CHOCOLATE)
Obviously, this kind of eating behavior generalizes very well to all foods, in
all conditions. In fact, when you observe people from healthy cultures eating any
of their wonderful foods at all, you notice these same themes coming through
quite naturally. The thin people—the ones without the heart disease and diabetes
—love their chocolate just like they love their food.
This fact is exactly why we should not fear chocolate. We should change our
way of thinking completely to recognize that chocolate is not a candy, but a
health food. It’s not a sinfully sumptuous vice that you sneak from the jar when
no one’s looking or treat yourself with because you’ve been “good” on your
draconian diet, but a virtue you should encourage every day. When we do this in
control, insulin is stabilized, calories are controlled, and the good cholesterol is
boosted while the bad cholesterol is decreased. Therefore, all these realities of
the physiological system make chocolate eating the solution to our dreadful
weight and health concerns, and not the problem.

—William Clower, Ph.D., author of
The French Don’t Diet Plan
and The Fat Fallacy
www.willclower.com