Thomson report

I have always liked dark chocolate from way back in my kid days and it wasn’t popular with younger people back then but we always seemed to have dark chocolate. Now it is the thing to eat or let me put that another way according to the experts a piece of dark chocolate is healthy for you. I love the idea.

Chocolate is no longer a guilty indulgence, says Cal Orey, author of "The Healing Powers of Chocolate". Instead, dark chocolate is a super food that may be a key to living a long, healthy life.

"In the past decade, studies proved that dark chocolate has many virtues, and, in moderation, can help stave off heart disease and cancer," Orey told Newsmax.TV. "It can even help you stay slim."

"There are 300 to 400 compounds in dark chocolate that can help you from head to toe, inside and outside of your body," said Orey, a health journalist who interviewed doctors, dietitians, and chocolatiers while researching her book.

In addition to life-threatening diseases, chocolate can also help with lesser ailments such as anxiety, depression, PMS, and seasonal affective disorder (SAD). Just a little piece of chocolate can make you feel happier.

Orey says eating chocolate on a regular basis can add years to your life by keeping the ailments of aging, such as heart disease and diabetes, at bay. "I believe that eating dark chocolate could extend your life by at least five years."
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration moved last week to do something about all the salt being used in our foods today whether it is the packaged product from your grocery store or the food you eat when you're outside your home. The FDA is after the food industry and the use of salt in the diet and they want things to change in the next ten years.

It is not soon enough for many but at least they are moving in the right direction. They gradually want to step down the amount of salt that can be added to foods. The risk for consumers of course is high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, and kidney failure.

When I did an interview with the national manufacturers PR person, her answer was, “Canadians like salt in their food, they like the taste.”

That is certainly true. We all like what salt does for the food we eat because it does add taste but it is killing us in these large doses we are receiving everyday. We don’t check the labels and ask questions in the restaurants we are eating at. When we were south this winter the restaurants all had to produce a comprehensive list of the ingredients of everything on their menus.

It was very helpful.

You can’t rely on the servers to get the salt out of the meal you are ordering because there is very little they can do about it. Today meals are delivered to these chains frozen and cooked and the salt is already in there. Or the special for the day has been underway in the kitchen since the early morning. Ask questions and read labels - it has to be part of your life today.

Note:

Table salt is getting a lot of competition from the new guy on the block--- sea salt. The hype about sea salt is that they claim it contains trace minerals that table salt doesn't have. Truth is, according to the experts those minerals are in such a low quantity that they don't make a difference to your health. The interesting news is that because sea salt has a much more intense flavor, you end up using less of it. That's great for the prevention of high blood pressure and heart disease.