How to Read Chocolate Labels

I've gone over a lot of information about chocolate to help you know what to look for when investing in chocolate as a health supplement ... and as a treat. But there's one last tip I'd like to share, and that's how to read a chocolate label.

The first thing to ALWAYS keep in mind (and this applies to all food labels) is that you've got to check out the serving size. This can GREATLY affect the importance of other information on the label.

For instance, if a can of soda had just 3 grams of sugar in it, this would be one amazing soda, since a typical can would have more like 40 grams of sugar. (If you'll remember from the page on sugar, I consider artificial sweeteners far worse than sugar, so I'm not counting zero-sugar sodas with aspartame.) In other words, 3 grams in this case would be a very small amount of sugar relative to the volume of drink.

But if a 1/2 ounce (14 gram) piece of chocolate had 3 grams of sugar in it, then that piece of sugar is more than 20% sugar. (And most of the chocolate I've seen has from 25-50+% sugar in it.) Say what you will, the health benefits of chocolate like that are going to be compromised by so great a percentage of sugar, which contributes to weight gain and diabetic problems. Even if the health benefits overcome the problem of the sugar, the benefits have been REDUCED by having to work against the sugar before helping the body in other ways.

(As I mentioned before, some sugars are safer than others for dieters and diabetics. Fructose IS more friendly than sucrose in terms of spiking blood sugar levels. But it still spikes those levels more than 3 times as much as xylitol, a healthy, natural sugar substitute.)

Likewise, look for the relative position of ingredients on a label. If sugar (or anything else, but it's usually sugar) comes before any of the cacao ingredients (cocoa butter, cocoa powder, etc.), then you know that sugar is present to a greater degree than those cacao ingredients. If you're looking for the health benefits of cacao, you want its ingredients to come first in the list.

Next, make sure you're taking a look at fat content. Now, I am NOT one to discourage moderate amounts of healthy fat, even during diets. And fat from cacao beans does NOT contribute to cholesterol problems. In fact, chocolate has been associated with lowering blood pressure.

But I also know that many healthy chocolates are being promoted for their weight loss properties. These properties are again due to the presence of elements from natural cacao. But if a serving of one piece of chocolate -- regardless of size -- has fewer grams of fat (and saturated fat in particular) than a serving of another, this should have some effect on weight loss efforts.

On a related note, make sure to check out calories. More fat will mean more calories. Fat contains more than twice the number of calories as either carbs (including sugar) and proteins. But also remember that sugar contains no nutrition in its calories, where a natural alcohol sugar like xylitol (while providing the same number of calories as traditional cane sugar) seems to provide several health benefits.

If you read through these important factors on the label of different chocolates, you'll quickly spot the ones that you can truly consider "healthy," and those that are just jumping on the "dark chocolate is healthy" bandwagon. Armed with the knowledge on this site, you won't get suckered into the latter, and you can invest with confidence in a form of chocolate that can satisfy your sweet tooth and that you never have to feel guilty about.

Now if you're ready to look at actual products, I've reviewed several on this website. Please visit "Reviews of Products" for a comparison of the healthy chocolates sold through referral (or network) marketing. Or visit specific product pages to see their individual reviews. The only chocolate sold through network marketing that meets my criteria for healthy chocolate is Tru Chocolate.