This is interesting. I searched a couple of places for articles about dark chocolate and I learned that not only is dark chocolate better than milk chocolate (which I knew), they advise avoiding drinking milk after eating dark chocolate because the milk interferes with absorption of antioxidants. I didn't know that - it kinda stinks because I love a glass of milk with my chocolate. Oh well.
Dark Chocolate Is Healthy Chocolate
Antioxidants in Dark Chocolate
Dark chocolate -- but not milk chocolate or dark chocolate eaten with milk -- is a potent antioxidant, report Mauro Serafini, PhD, of Italy's National Institute for Food and Nutrition Research in Rome, and colleagues. Their report appears in the Aug. 28 issue of Nature. Antioxidants gobble up free radicals, destructive molecules that are implicated in heart disease and other ailments.
"Our findings indicate that milk may interfere with the absorption of antioxidants from chocolate ... and may therefore negate the potential health benefits that can be derived from eating moderate amounts of dark chocolate."
Translation: Say "Dark, please," when ordering at the chocolate counter. Don't even think of washing it down with milk. And if health is your excuse for eating chocolate, remember the word "moderate" as you nibble.
Dark chocolate boosts antioxidant levels
Researchers in Scotland and Italy looked at the body's absorption of an antioxidant found in cocoa, called epicatechin, and a type of flavonoid.
Dark chocolate contains about twice the amount of flavonoids as milk chocolate, so 12 healthy volunteers were given either 100 grams of plain chocolate or 200 grams of milk chocolate. Some were also given 200 ml of milk to drink in the double-blind experiment. The levels of antioxidant in their blood plasma were tested after one, two and four hours.
Maximum benefit
"Those volunteers who had dark chocolate had a 20 per cent increase in antioxidants in their plasma," says Alan Crozier, one of the team at the University of Glasgow. "But those who had milk chocolate, or milk with their dark chocolate, showed no increase in epicatechin plasma levels,"
Four hours after eating the chocolate, all the volunteers' blood antioxidant levels had returned to normal. To gain the maximum potential benefits from chocolate, Crozier suggests it may be advisable to refrain from milk products during that period.
RN just get your antioxidants some other way. If you like to drink milk with your chocolate you should do it! Let's live a little, like Steve says. I'm not using health reasons for an excuse to eat it! Chocolate is sacred.