Yum..yum...
Chocolate is renowned for its feel-good factor. Most of us love chocolate for the smooth, creamy texture and treat it as an indulgence, but there’s some debate about whether chocolate really is the best food to improve your mood.
Chocolate has been popularly claimed to act like a stimulant, relaxant, euphoriant, tonic and anti-depressant. Although chocolate contains some active chemicals which work on the same neurological system as serotonin, these are present in low levels.
One researcher has commented that you would have to eat truckloads of chocolate to experience the equivalent effects of one anti-depressant tablet. There is also the theory that chocolate has the ability to evoke the pleasure principle. When we eat delicious foods, we experience a rise in endorphins and a temporary mood boost. So, when we have a chocolate craving, it could be a response to our body crying out for more of that feel-good food.
However, interesting new research shows that a person’s feeling about a food have the greatest effect on the emotional changes they experince after eating that food. Comfort-eaters, who look to chocolate to alleviate stress, boredom or depression, are likely to experience a temporary elevation in their mood, but this is quickly followed by intense feelings of guilt and a worsening of the earlier negative state.
Yet people who have a little choccy for pleasure are more likely to experience joy and ride the wave of the positive mood effect. Quantity appears to play a big role here. A little chocolate seems to be a good pick-me-up, but the whole block is less likely to leave you joyful.
