Why You Shouldn’t ‘DECHOX’ This Easter

Posted by in Features on February 23 2016 | Leave A Comment

Last week, a friend posted this somewhat dubious ad for the British Heart Foundation on Facebook. I’m going to ignore the childish innuendo for now, because I want to talk about the message behind the ad.

Dechox Ad

DECHOX for March” is a campaign by the highly respected British Heart Foundation to try to get us to give up chocolate for Easter.

The implication being that chocolate is clearly bad for your heart and giving up chocolate for a whole month will be a beneficial challenge.

Dechox Website

Except giving up chocolate is categorically not beneficial for your heart. Many, many scientific studies have conclusively proven that chocolate is beneficial to your heart, and can help prevent a whole range of other ailments. You’ll find links to just a few articles on the subject below.

The message doesn’t seem to have got through to the experts at the BHF though.

You might be thinking that the research only applies to intense, bitter, high cocoa solids chocolate that nobody really enjoys eating anyway. But you’d be wrong. Research has shown that even milk chocolate can be beneficial to the heart.

When I asked the BHF why they thought it was a good idea to encourage people to quit something that is beneficial to heart health, their response was simply that it was a “tough challenge”.

Of course, if you really want to promote heart health, eating a balanced and healthy diet can play a major role. Decreasing the amount of sugar you consume is generally a very good idea, but encouraging people to give up chocolate entirely is not. It reinforces the message that chocolate is somehow bad without explaining why.

Most of us could use help with improving our diets. But if you really care about your heart, don’t ‘DECHOX’ this Easter, but take the opportunity to switch up to better quality chocolate.

A little afternoon snack...

There are hundreds of craft chocolate makers producing amazing tasting chocolate these days. They use high quality, fine flavour beans, so even at higher cocoa percentages they won’t be bitter or unapproachable. For the milk chocolate lover, a great dark milk bar will last you at least a couple of days. You’ll consume less, but get even more out of it.

If you don’t know where to start, then take a look at my friends at Cocoa Runners. They have an amazing selection of bars to cater for every taste and a great recommendation system for finding the perfect bars for you.

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Comments On This Post

  1. Fathima Hamid

    A senseless campaign! Totally gives out a wrong message. Why would an eminent organisation dedicated to promoting good heart health want to ask for people to give up a food beneficial for the heart just because “It’s so tough”??? Me thinks the think tanks behind this campaign obviously didn’t think long enough before broadcasting it to the public and when rightly called out came up with a childish excuse rather than admitting their mistake.

  2. G Woltmann

    Gustavo Woltmann thinks that this is great blog about chocolate! – Gustavo Woltmann

  3. sudhakar

    I think it may good to give up gorging on the cheap sugary, veg fatty, virtually cocoa free chocolate might be a good idea.

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