Chocolate for Your Heart – Heck Yeah!

Let’s be honest: most women love chocolate. Every day as the clock strikes four in our office (and probably office buildings around the world), our estrogen levels strike chocolate. We need chocolate and we need it now. We dig into the corners of our desk drawers, purses, and jacket pockets for a nibble of something to stave off the afternoon sweetness gods.

Fortunately, chocolate—correction, dark chocolate—has been labeled as a super food. Dark chocolate is full of flavonoids, the same antioxidants that make tea so fabulously good for you. Flavonoids help to lower blood pressure and keep your arteries from clogging—that’s good news for your heart and even better news for all of us chocolate addicts.

But as with everything, moderation is the key. Experts recommend only a small portion (one to two squares) per day to reap the benefits. So in order to decide which dark chocolate we should blow our daily portion and calories on, our staff members each brought in a bar of dark chocolate that was over 70 percent cacao (that’s the good flavonoid-filled stuff) to do a blind taste-testing. Here’s what turned us on … and what tasted like tanbark.

And the winner is …

Villars Swiss Chocolate (Our score: 4.2 out of 5.)
Per serving: 72% cacao, 220 calories, 18 grams fat
This was our unanimous favorite. I personally was a fan of Villars because its bars are decorated with pretty floral motifs. One tester described this bar as having a hint of nuttiness (perhaps hazelnut) subtle sweetness, and the perfect amount of bitterness. Our chocolate connoisseurs said that it would go great paired with sex and that it had a “slight alcohol flavor”—me likey.

We also loved this one—but it doesn’t fall into the 70 percent or over “good for you” category.

Michael Mischer (Our score: 4.2 out of 5.)
65% cacao
Nutritional information not available.
Michael Misher, a Bay Area native, slipped into our test. This bar is only 65 percent cacao, which is probably why we cherished its sweet and savory deliciousness. The best part of Michael Mischer’s chocolate was the little chunks of sea salt speckling the bottom.