From The New York Times
Chocolate Milk May Reduce Inflammation
RONI CARYN RABIN
November 9, 2009
Move over, red wine. Make room for chocolate milk. A new study suggests that regular consumption of skim milk with flavonoid-rich cocoa may reduce inflammation, potentially slowing or preventing development of atherosclerosis. Researchers noted, however, that the effect was not as pronounced as that seen with red wine. Volunteers ages 55 and older who were at risk for heart disease. Half were given 20-gram sachets of soluble cocoa powder to drink with skim milk twice a day, while the rest drank plain skim milk. After one month, the groups were switched. Blood tests found that after participants drank chocolate milk twice a day for four weeks, they had significantly lower levels of several inflammatory biomarkers, though some markers of cellular inflammation remained unchanged.
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Participants also had significantly higher levels of good HDL cholesterol after completing the chocolate milk regimen, according to the study, which appears in the November issue of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and is already online.
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19 comments:
I’m from the school of “if some is good, more is better,” so I’ll be eating more ice cream with hot fudge and whipped cream. Oh, and drinking lots more red wine. ;->
Bless you for telling me about this.
Holden
Plenty of wine, plenty of dark beer, plenty of chocolate and you'll live forever.
Dana
Have a chocolate milk on me.
I knew that one day my Cocoa Pebbles diet would be validated.
Wow. Why didn't I read this before I came home so I could stock up? Personally, I'd go for the Cocoa Crispies. Would? I mean to say, I will.
It's sort of a pity that breakfast cereal doesn't go with red wine or dark beer, but on the other hand, it kind of stretches out the day.
Seana
I hate to pick a fight (that's Marco's job) but I feel that Cocoa Pebbles are much superior to Cocoa Krispies. In general I prefer Kellogs products to those of Post, but not here.
I have tried beer with (but not on) breakfast and it answers very well.
Adrian, no it's good that you and I fight without blaming Marco.
Quite simply, you are wrong. Although I can't totally say whether drinking a lot of beer might change the equation. I don't tend to mix my vices. Or, update that to say, health benefits.
No, try as we might, we aren't actually going to be able to go for the jugular on this one, are we? At some point, like tomorrow morning, I'll just tire of the debate and go buy some Cocoa Crispies to buoy my spirits.
Here's where I think some solidarity might be possible. I was looking at a cheat sheet/promotion material form Michael Pollen's new book which is either called Food Facts or Fast Food or some spin on all this which I can't be bothered to look up. Here's one of the tips: If it's made from a plant, buy it. If it's made in plant, pass it by.
If I followed this logic, I would have died from starvation by now. Or died from boredom eating the maybe three meals I can cook.
Holden, you might really like a book called A Little Too Much is Enough by Kathleen Tyau. It's set in Hawaii, and she's talking about a little too much poi. It's true that most people find a little poi too much, but still...
Seana
I remember talking to someone who was an advocate of the so called Stone Age diet. "That's what our bodies are designed to eat, thats what we ate for half a million years" my pal said. But on the other hand that might be why we were stuck in the bloody Stone Age for half a million years.
Amen. I think Jacques Barzun would call this a return to PRIMITIVISM. (And for those who haven't read him, yes, that would be capitalized.)
One thing about living in Santa Cruz is that it is sort of a capital of healthy food superiority. We had a big vegan food/book event at the store only last night. I didn't go, but I heard it was a big success. I have nothing against veganism, in fact it makes a great deal of sense to me except for the fact that I couldn't actually be one. Well, I could if I had a really great vegan chef. But if I could hire a really great vegan chef, I think I would rather hire a really great French one.
It's funny because yesterday, after a meeting in which we finalized the text of a leaflet, I went to eat with a friend (that one) his girlfriend and another friend of us. My friend ordered his usual "throw everything at it and see if it sticks" pizza plus a portion of french fries , the girls for once renounced their salutist beliefs and went for huge, greasy, dripping cheeseburgers, while I did order sgabei -fritters with ham, pancetta and stracchino (we were ravenous).
So we began discussing healthy and unhealthy foods and I told them Adrian's joke about Belfast as the city of Logan's run. When I described the Ulster Fry I saw a fleeting gleam in my friend's eye, of the kind usually provoked only by the mention of Germany or wheat beers.
One of the girls then said that when she went to Ireland with a student exchange program she brought her host family a bottle of pure extra virgin Tuscan olive oil, plus pasta and sauces, and they complained about Italian cuisine being rich in fat. You see, they didn't need oil, they dressed their salads with lard.
Anyway, I probably need some chocolate milk right now. I hope all the beers I drank yesterday will count as red wine.
And apropos beers, we also had a discussion about the merits of German breakfasts - beer, pretzel, sausages. We ended up divided along gender lines about that one.
This would have been the perfect time to suggest that the German breakfast lovers go on a German road trip together, sampling native fare, and let the others stay home.
Not that I presume to guess which gender was the German breakfast loving one. Well, yes, I do.
Marco
There's an interesting Wiki entry on the regional variation of the British Breakfast here.
My preferred Ulster fry would consist of fried: potato bread, soda bread, wheaten bread, eggs, bacon, sausage and black pudding. But not cooked in lard.
Seana
I've had vegan chocolate cake before. I dont know what was in it but it was pretty good.
Seana, thanks for the book recommendation, I'll check it out.
I think vegan chocolate cake has vegans in it. You know, for leavening.
Actually, one of my friends in town ownd the Black China Bakery, and due to popular demand she has long since figured out how to make a delicious vegan chocolate cake. Also, wheatfree cakes, dairy free cakes, eggless cakes--name your dieterary restriction and I am pretty sure she can do it. They also make wedding cakes for all kinds of cultures. I remember when she got an Indian cake order and had to be instructed that white wasn't the best color for the frosting. But that was awhile ago now.
The only thing they're apparently not all that good at is creating a website. You can see a website, but it just instructs you to phone...
Holden, hope you like it. There was a big Hawaii craze going through the fiction world a few years ago, or at least here there was, and a lot of Hawaiian writers seemed to be come more prominent for a time. I think that wave may have subsided a bit, though.
Seana
Yeah I've seen those flour-less cakes too, but that for me is a bridge too far.
Well, I think you'd probably have to try one before you decide. For me the bridge too far would be leaving out the chocolate.
I can remember a time in my youth when substituting carob for chocolate was all the rage. Sorry, but it is definitely not an equivalent.
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