Journalists: Stephen Reucroft and John Swain

Boston Globe

April, 1999

Good news for chocolate lovers – the stuff may actually be good for you. Choclate contains polyphenols, antioxidant compounds that can protect cells from highly reactive chemical fragments called free radicals. Free radicals can come from exposure to radiation, or from a wide range of chemical reactions that go on all the time in the body. Joe Vinson of The University of Scranton, in Pennsylvania, reports that chocolate is so loaded with polyphenols that you can get as much from a 12-ounce bar of milk chocolate as from a day’s supply of fruits and vegetables. If you like dark chocolate, so much the better, as a similarly sized bar will give you a two day supply.