A Chocolate Fountain of Youth?

We humans are strange indeed. People spend so much energy in anattempt to look and feel younger, that they so often miss thefact that they are using so much precious time doing so. Couldthe answer to retaining youth be right under our very noses,could something as well known as chocolate be the answer?

Age is seen as the ultimate enemy of the modern man and woman.With the pressures to always be on top and keep climbing,capturing the energy and vitality of youth has a compulsion manycannot ignore. Through history a variety of notions to stop theeffects of time have surfaced and allured so many. In thesixteenth century, the insane Countess Bathory and her'associates' murdered over 600 young girls for blood baths, intheir quest for immortality. Many of the less morbid antidotesto ageing taste nasty, smell funny or are simply unaffordable.Can it be that something as pleasurable and universallyaccessible as chocolate, could be a youth serum? Preposterousyou say? Perhaps not, the cocoa bean, the essence of chocolate,has a complex chemical makeup that we are still trying tounderstand. What we do know however, is that chocolate containsflavinoids - healthy chemicals (a sub-group of polyphenols),that are widely believed to possess several health benefits.Flavinoid's strongest health related property is as anantioxidant. Antioxidants combat free radicals which arenaturally produced by your body and cause irreversible damage(oxidation) to cells. Free radicals can leave your bodyvulnerable to premature aging, cancer,

cardiovascular disease,and degenerative diseases like arthritis and although modernscience has increased our average life spans, environmentalfactors like cigarette smoke, exhaust fumes, radiation from UVexposure, and stress can increase free radicals. So finding asource of antioxidants to counteract this could well leave youlooking and feeling younger. To get the most out of thisparticular fountain of youth you should eat chocolate with ashigh a percentage of cocoa as possible, it is only these darkchocolates that have a significant level of flavinoids, in orderto obtain the light and sweet taste in milk chocolate, many ofthem are processed out. So eating mass produced candy bars youfind in your local supermarket which are very low cocoa content(and are in fact not really classified as chocolates), is notlikely to do you any good, in fact the concentrated sugars andartificial flavorings are probably bad for your overall healthif eaten regularly. Chocolate a health product? Are you shakingyour head? Well for all the skeptics out there you should lookat it like this: a bit of sumptuous chocolate may not be the keyto immortality, but it always makes you smile and that's gottakeep you young.

If you are interested in quality chocolates visit Neuhaus Chocolatesfor a wide selection of delicious chocolates from Belgium'spremier chocolate house. Not only is there a wide selection ofexquisite delights to choose from you can find out more unknownfacts about chocolate.

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