Food chemist Chang Y. Lee, Ph.D., Chairman of the Department of Food Sciences and Technology at Cornell University's New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, New York, discusses the surprising health benefits of cocoa.

For many centuries, chocolate has been recognized for its extraordinary medicinal properties. Scientists have long known that nutrients called flavonoids were responsible for the health benefits of cocoa. Like carotenes, flavonoids are the plant pigments that color our fruits and vegetables. These water-soluble nutrients also function as antioxidants, mopping up harmful substances in the body and neutralizing them. Until recently, however, no one understood how plentiful flavonoids were in cocoa, particularly as compared with other beverages.

In a laboratory at Cornell University, however, food chemist Chang Y. Lee, Ph.D. recently found that a cup of cocoa has nearly twice the antioxidants of a glass of red wine and up to three times those found in a cup of green tea. Dr. Lee, Chairman of the Department of Food Sciences and Technology at the university's New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, NY, published his findings in the December 3, 2003 issue of the American Chemical Society's Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry. Dr. Lee and his colleagues have also published a textbook on this topic called, "Phenolic Compounds in Food and Their Effects on Health."

Dr. Lee, your research indicates that cocoa leads other drinks that are high in phenolic phytochemicals - or flavonoids - indicating antioxidants that can help fight cancer, heart disease, and other ailments. First of all, can you tell us something about antioxidants?
Antioxidants are substances that are capable of scavenging or stabilizing free radicals (unstable molecules that have unpaired electrons). Free radicals damage cells or DNA and have been implicated in various human diseases including the processes of aging, cancer, autoimmune disease, senile dementia, inflammation, arthritis, and atherosclerosis.

During the past two to three decades, researchers have identified -through in vitro tests - a wide range of potentially significant biological activities exhibited by natural antioxidants. Scientists knew that these compounds played an important role in plant health, protecting against insects and pathogens. More recently, however, we find that these biological activities play an important role in human health as well. I'm astonished to see that so many research papers related to antioxidant activities of plant foods have been published during the last two to three years in many scientific journals. More than 4,000 phenolic compounds from plants have been identified thus far!

What did your recent study find about the relative amounts of antioxidants in cocoa?
In our study, I was surprised to find that cocoa has more than twice the phenolic compounds as in red wine and three times the amount in green tea. Before our study, I expected cocoa would have antioxidants at the same range of green tea on a per serving basis.

Do you think the same level of antioxidants that you found in cocoa would also be present in instant chocolate drinks we buy in the supermarket?
I didn't do any research on various mixes, therefore, I do not know. If you mix a large number of different ingredients, as in chocolate mixes, for example, you would expect to have different chemical reactions that may be more or less beneficial to our health. It is my understanding that protein in milk may react with phenolic compounds in cocoa, and this may reduce biological activity, but we still have a long way to go to understand it completely.

Antioxidants do remain active even after food processing, however. If you are not concerned about extra amounts of sugar and fat added to chocolate, I would suggest that a chocolate mix still provides a good dose of antioxidants in your diet. I drink cocoa about three to four times a week, either with skim milk at home, or in an instant mix if I'm in a coffee shop. I think that any premium commercial cocoa powder product would provide a nutritionally rich drink teeming with a relatively high amount of antioxidants.

Your research also indicates that cocoa has about one-third of a gram of fat per one-cup serving, which is significantly less than the 8 grams of fat in a standard-size 40-gram chocolate bar. That's a huge difference.
Those figures are based on published data. If you take a look at the label of a chocolate bar, you will see the figures. The fat content in cocoa powder is very small. To make chocolate from cocoa, a number of ingredients are added. One of them is milk powder, which provides a significant amount of saturated fat.

Is there such a thing as a toxic amount of antioxidants, or can you consume as many as you want?
Scientists do not know yet the exact amounts of antioxidants we should take each day, so we have to be careful with the use of food supplements that contain antioxidants. On the other hand, there is no evidence that shows that an excessive intake of antioxidants from a normal diet causes any harmful effects. For this reason, I believe that a cup of cocoa, plus a cup of green tea, and a glass of wine per person each day would not be overdoing a good thing.

Theobroma Cacao
"Food of the Gods"

Reviewed and published: February 10, 2004