Sugar-free chocolate as a part of a diet?

In the last few years, the sugar-free and portion-controlled chocolate market has exploded. You can surely find all sorts of sugar-free variation of favorite chocolate bars.

Moreover you can now shop for individually wrapped chocolate bars or sticks in 60- to 100-calorie portions, along with the ever-popular kisses. To comfort you decide among all the alternative outside there, we taste-tested the amount of sugar-free chocolate products (and some portion-controlled ones, too).

However firstly, I would like to talk about how having a piece chocolate every day could in truth be helpful for your health. Do I Mean that Chocolate Can Truly Be Good For You? Yes, that's correct - chocolate does appear to bear some health benefits. Despite the fact that more research needs to be done, studies have indicated that cocoa and darker types of chocolate may help reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, decrease blood pressure, and ease blood vessels.

Many of the health benefits of chocolate seem to stem from the antioxidant flavanols (a category of flavonoid), which can also be found in other plant foods like tea, grapes, grapefruit, and wine. The cocoa bean happens to be extraordinarily rich in them.

The flavanol content of chocolate depends on the flavanol content of the cacao plant used, and the way the cocoa was turned into chocolate. But here are three general rules of thumb. First of all, cocoa dust and baking chocolate contain more flavonoids than dark chocolate. Secondly, dark chocolate has more flavonoids than milk chocolate, and after all white chocolate has none.

However, there's a catch to all this - you won’t be happy to cancel out all these potential health benefits of dark chocolate and cocoa by eating too many calories or too much saturated fat. So portion control is vital.

How Do They Make Sugar-Free Chocolate That Tastes Great? The first thing I learned while surveying the sugar-free chocolate market was that certain drug stores and supermarkets each stock certain brands of sugar-free chocolate. So, if you're looking for a special brand, keep going to different stores. Moreover soon I discovered that the sugar replacement du jour for sugar-free chocolates is maltitol (a sugar lcohol). It is used almost in all of the sugar-free chocolates. This type of sugar replacer (which includes sorbitol, xylitol, mannitol, and isomalt, in addition to maltitol) is particularly good to people with diabetes because only a portion of it is digested and absorbed. And the part that is absorbed through the intestinal tract is absorbed slowly, so there is little rise in blood sugar and little need for insulin.

Sounds too nice to be true? Well, I must admit there is a pair of downsides to sugar-free chocolate. First to mention is potential intestinal discomfort. Most packages of sugar-free chocolate carry a label that reads" "Excessive consumption may cause a laxative effect." This "laxative effect" is said of the factor of the sugar alcohol that isn't digested or absorbed. It goes through the intestinal tract and starts to ferment and attract water. In result discomfort can rang from gas to diarrhea, depending on the amount consumed and everyone person's individual intestinal tract. Consider this a little extra motivation to eat these chocolates in smaller portions! Remember that The American Dietetic Association advises that more than 50 grams of sorbitol or 20 grams of mannitol per day can cause diarrhea. You can find out how much sugar alcohol is in each sugar-free chocolate product by reading the nutrition hookup label.

Sugar-free doesn't mean saturated-fat free, or calorie-free. Chocolate tastes so good thanks to 2 things: he sweet ingredient (maltitol, in the case of sugar-free chocolate), and cocoa butter. And cocoa butter is extremely rich in saturated fat. For example, five pieces of Russell Stover Sugar Free Chocolate Candy Miniatures add up to 190 calories, 14 grams of total fat, and 9 grams of saturated fat.

Does Sugar-Free Chocolate Enjoy Fewer Calories? The good news is that there are some calorie savings with sugar-free chocolate. The bad news is that it its amount is not impressive after all. A 40-gram serving of Dove sugar-free chocolate has 190 calories, and the corresponding amount of regular milk chocolate totals around 210 calories. If this represents a daily savings of 20 calories, the weekly savings could be 140 calories, and the monthly savings, 560.

Given these calorie totals, it's important to keep portion extent in mind even if you vote for sugar-free chocolate.