At last.

A ‘test’ that we can believe. A real one performed by real scientists (Louisiana? real??) providing incontrovertible results. Meaning ‘ones that we want to hear’.

Chocolate is good for you.

But really good. Makes you live longer, stay healthier, enlarges your sexual organs, keeps you slim, fit, lowers blood pressure, raises… whatever’s good to be raised, reduces cholesterol, makes your hair shiny, increases brain power, improves your appearance, makes you a better driver, improves humour and makes you less likely to vote UKIP.

Ok, I’m ‘extrapolating’ a bit there. Which I can do.

The tests showed that compounds in cocoa ferment in the stomach to produce natural anti-inflammatories and reduce the risk of strokes. They also have anti-oxidant properties that reduce the likelihood of cardiovascular diseases. Wow.

These tests were performed on a ‘model colon’ at the University of Louisiana, as opposed to a ‘model’s colon’ which would have been more fun but less instructive as models don’t eat anything. Anyway, everyone who has a model colon inside them is going to be really healthy eating chocolate. Which is the best news everrrrrrrrr.

But, and there’s always a ‘but’. Its high cocoa, bitter chocolate that bestows these benefits and makes you live forever. The useful compounds are often broken down when that cocoa is processed with excessive sugar and fats. Or, ‘the good stuff’, as its known in scientific circles. So for those among ‘you’ who gorge on Cadbury’s finest, who see Easter Egg season as a gift from the gods, who hit that Mars Bar/Kit-Kat/Snickers trail every afternoon; you’re gonna die.

There again, its all about percentages. Green & Black’s awful chocolate-flavoured poison is about 75% pure chocolate. And consequently tastes like shit. Chocolate flavoured shit. Whereas the ‘real’ stuff, dairy milk chocolate, contains about 20% ‘cocoa solids’. So the answer is simple. Eat Cadburys chocolate, but make sure you eat four times as much as you would if you were eating ‘better’ chocolate. To give you the same amount of ‘goodness’. Its just common sense.

I’m off to the sweet shop,

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx