Healthy Chocolate & Eco-Friendly Snow & Ice Removal

Listen, laugh & learn with the Green Divas (and Green Dude Scott) anytime - Podcast here!

Once again, we had one of our favorite guests, Green Dude Paul Miller, Coordinator for the Town of Morristown Office of Sustainability, in the studio with us. Of course, we carried on quite a bit about the benefits of supporting your local community in terms of food, farms, businesses, charities, etc.

Green Diva Lisa did a mouth-watering segment on why we should eat dark chocolate (fair trade please!) or give it to a special someone we love for Valentine’s Day. Some surprising reasons to consider the healthy attributes of chocolate! Here are just a few of the reasons she talked about:

Eat about 3 to 4 oz a day (LOVE this idea!)
It is good for your heart and stimulates your endorphin production
Chocolate is high in flavonoids which you are the goodies you find in cranberries, apples, onions, tea and red wine
It can lower blood pressure
Dark chocolate can lower the bad boy LDL cholesterol by up to 10 percent
1/3 of the fat is the same as olive oil
1/3 of the fat had a neutral affect
1/3 is the not-so-good fat
Has 300 compounds and healthy biochemicals in each bite
Eat chocolate with at least 65 percent cocoa in it
Improves blood flow to the brain and heart (two very sexy organs)
More on the Green Divas blog post for this podcast . . .

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Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Ra S.

10:58AM PST on Feb 29, 2012

I really think they do all of these studies on chocolate just because people like to eat it so much. I hate chocolate, so it'd be nice to see other options with similar health profiles. It's like how they will come up with a study on how walnuts are really good for you, but they don't even test pine nuts (probably because they are more expensive), which I actually enjoy eating. I bet pine nuts are good for you too, but you won't see a ton of articles about it. And rarely do the articles do any sort of spectrum of health. How good for you is chocolate? What would give you similar benefits but be better? What would be a little bit worse? How should I rank it compared to trying to get other good for me foods in my diet? Or is it just an excuse to eat chocolate?

February 29
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Eternal G.

6:50PM PST on Feb 24, 2012

I rather eat some nuts....

February 24
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Dan and Tina P.

2:28PM PST on Feb 9, 2012

Sounds very healthy. I'm all for it.

February 9
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megan m.

5:30AM PST on Feb 9, 2012

@ Diane L. - yes, VERY important to make sure to buy chocolate from fair trade sources (that means NO child labor!). We make that clear in our original post and here's a link to our Sleeping Naked is Green segment on Why we should always buy fair trade - http://TheGreenDivas.buzzsprout.com/2640/38602-green-divas-sleeping-naked-is-green-segment-14-drink-only-fair-trade-tea

Diane L.

2:16AM PST on Feb 9, 2012

Where I live, much of the chocolate originates from the Ivory Coast, where child slavery is used to harvest it. Before buying any chocolate, please make sure the company which sells it has sourced it without the use of child slaves. The conditions in which these children are forced to live, and the loss of their freedom, makes it imperative that we know where our chocolate comes from. Many major US brands source from businesses using child slavery, so please check.

heather g.

2:02AM PST on Feb 9, 2012

I suspect that very few will heed this advice, apart from the chocolate !

may H.

4:14PM PST on Feb 8, 2012

yummy chocolate

February 8
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Kishore A.

4:12PM PST on Feb 8, 2012

Thanks.

4:10PM PST on Feb 8, 2012

Robin R.

1:44PM PST on Feb 8, 2012

who cares about snow??? I'm eating dark chocolate right now! That was the reason I was afraid to go vegan - then I discovered that some dark chocolate IS vegan!