Today's superfood is Dark Chocolate!
Dark Chocolate is a great source of Polyphenols.
It is recommended that you don't eat more than 100 calories worth of dark chocolate daily, and adjust your diet accordingly to compensate for the 100 calories. Make sure it's dark chocolate and not milk or white, because the milk intereferes with the effectiveness of the polyphenols.
Dark chocolate is considered a SuperFood because it contributes to lowering blood pressure and increasing blood flow.
When you buy chocoalte, it is important to look at the cocoa solids percentage. Anything 70% and over is what you should shoot for.
This chart from SuperFoods Healthstyle shows some of the polyphenol richest chocolates:
Newman's Own Sweet Dark Chocolate - 955 mg
Dove Silky Dark Chocolate - 811 mg
Endangered Species Dark Chocolate Wolf Bar - 811 mg
Cadbury Royal Indulgent Dark Chocolate - 765 mg
Hershey's Special Mildly Sweet Dark Chocolate - 676 mg
As far as cocoa powder, it's best to go with natural cacao rather than Dutch process, which is best for baking because it has been treated to neutralize alkaline, making it stable for baking and such.
Tonight for dinner, I made Chicken Mole, which had a delicious chocolate flavor from natural cocoa powder.
If you look on my blog's chocolate tag, you'll be inundated with baked goods, which aren't exactly healthy... so I tried to find some of the savory/dinner/somewhat healthy chocolate dishes: Vegetarian Cincinnati Chili, Chocolate Oat Pancakes, Figs Filled With Almonds and Chocolate, Homemade Chocolate Marshmallows, Chocolate Sorbet
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