Originally published July 21 2012
Chocolate can improve blood circulation, EFSA rules
by PF Louis
(NaturalNews) The EFSA is the European Food Safety Authority, and it considers it okay for a food to promote health benefits based on scientific proof. This is not the attitude of USA's Food and Drug Administration.
Our militantly aggressive FDA has the viewpoint that only large pharmaceutical corporations can promote health benefits for their toxic formulas that harm more than they help.
Look out for the FDA if any food group, such as walnut growers, cherry producers, and others who have promoted health benefits with independently documented scientific proof. Those food groups and others have been harassed and threatened in the past until they were forced to rescind their factual health claims. (http://www.naturalnews.com/028746_FDA_censorship.html)
Meanwhile, junk cereal makers falsely promote nutrients in their toxically polluted products and the FDA ignores that. But it certainly helps keep Big Pharma's products on the market until the death toll gets public attention and lawsuits are filed.
All bureaucracies tend to be dysfunctional. But food safety agencies outside of North America and Australia seem to be a little saner. Even so, the EFSA's decision on chocolate has to be signed off by the European Commission, and they have been stricter on such matters.
The EU chocolate push
Barry Callebaut's Swiss based company, Callebaut Chocolate, is the largest chocolate producer in the world. They are wholesalers to several international brand name candy companies who use chocolate, providing them with large blocks of chocolate and containers of cacao powder.
So Barry made a push to incorporate several independent studies of dark chocolate and cacao's cardiac health benefits, which state that daily consumption of dark chocolate or cacao greatly reduce the risks of coronary issues, heart attacks, or strokes.
Those studies had isolated flavanols in raw chocolate that boosted or maintained normal vasodilation, or dilating blood vessels to improve blood flow. Barry went the remaining distance by supplying the EFSA with scientific documentation proving his special process of creating chocolate does not destroy the flavanols that normal chocolate making does.
Callebaut's chunks of chocolate and containers of cocoa powder supply companies internationally that manufacture chocolate candies and cocoa powders or beverages.
The EFSA ruling, if it is signed off by the European Commission, will create "... new market potential both for us and for our customers," according to chief executive Juergen Steinemann. Those customers include Nestle's, Hershey's, and many lesser known candy and cocoa powder providers.
The implication is those "customers" may be able to promote the same health claims that Barry and company have strenuously sought. One wonders if that really means the FDA will ignore those chocolate and cocoa product claims when they arrive on US store shelves.
The EFSA adds that in order for the cardiovascular health claim to be valid, one must consume 200mg of cocoa daily, which equates to 10 grams of dark chocolate or 2.5 grams of high-flavonol cocoa powder as part of a balanced diet. These numbers equal less than one ounce.
Cardiologist Dr. Kenneth Ong of the Brooklyn Hospital Center responded with this typical allopathic perspective: "I suspect that consuming dark chocolate every day for 10 years may have unintended adverse consequences." His concern was for increasing sugar intakes among those overweight and at risk for diabetes.
So doc, are you saying statin drugs are safer than less than an ounce a day of really dark chocolate containing very little sugar? (http://www.naturalnews.com)
Hopefully, this may be the tip of a spear to puncture the FDA's disdain for natural food health claims. But this will be a moot point if the European Commission doesn't sign off on the EFSA approval.
Sources for this article include:
http://www.reuters.com
http://www.cbsnews.com
http://www.cbsnews.com
http://www.confectionerynews.com/On-your-radar/Functional-Chocolate
http://www.newstrackindia.com
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