Health Benefits of Chocolate
The Exam Room by the Physicians Committee
Physicians Committee
4.9 • 3.5K Ratings
🗓️ 28 November 2018
⏱️ 75 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Some call chocolate a superfood. Some just call it super. But is it healthy?
This week's episode of The Exam Room™ is devoted to investigating claims that chocolate can combat everything from heart disease and cancer to high cholesterol and blood pressure.
"The Weight Loss Champion" Chuck Carroll goes one-on-one with dietician Maggie Neola to find out whether floating in Willy Wonka's chocolate river is the key to a long and healthy life or whether you'll go down with the candy ship.
Plus, former actor and environmental advocate Suzy Amis Cameron joins the show to talk about her new book "OMD: The Simple, Plant-Based Program to Save Your Health, Save Your Waistline, and Save the Planet." She details how eating just one less meal with meat and dairy each day can dramatically reduce your carbon footprint as well as improve your health.
Suzy also shares a funny story about what she found the first time she opened her husband's pantry! The shelves look much different today and her husband, director James Cameron, is now devoted to a plant-based diet as well.
In This Episode
- The difference between cacao and chocolate
- Comparing nutritional value of dark chocolate and milk chocolate
- What antioxidants are in chocolate?
- Can they help prevent cancer, obesity, diabetes, heart disease and strokes?
- Can chocolate improve brain function?
- How chocolate loses nutritional value during processing
- How changing just one meal a day can improve the environment
- Suzy Amis Cameron's moving story about why she adopted a plant-based diet
- How she convinced her husband to go vegan
Follow
Twitter: @ChuckCarrollWLC / @PCRM / @suzymusing
IG: @ChuckCarrollWLC / @PhysiciansCommittee / @suzyamiscameron
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to another episode of the Exam Room Podcast brought to you by the Physicians Committee. |
| 0:13.5 | Hi, I am the Weight Loss Champion Chuck Carroll. Can't tell you how much I appreciate you giving the show a listen and a download today. |
| 0:19.8 | And I gotta tell you, today's episode, it's gonna be downright. |
| 0:25.0 | But before we get to that, housekeeping, if you have not already done so, please go ahead and subscribe to the Exam Room Podcast by the Physicians Committee on Apple Podcasts or wherever it is that you get your podcast from. |
| 0:38.3 | That's where you can find us. And as you're there, as you're subscribing, if you would be so kind as to leave a five-star rating and a nice comment, we would be ever so grateful. |
| 0:50.6 | Now then, some people like it. Some people love it, but millions say they can't live without it. |
| 1:01.6 | Talking about chocolate. Ask almost anyone if they would like some and you're probably |
| 1:14.6 | going to hear, and it's not just because of chocolate's sweet taste. You know, many |
| 1:20.6 | are quick to tout its supposedly incredible health benefits. Claims that chocolate can |
| 1:26.9 | improve brain function, lower cholesterol, reduce heart disease, even aid in the recovery |
| 1:33.2 | of concussions and lower the risk of dying. But just how accurate are these claims? That |
| 1:42.1 | is what we're going to unwrap on this episode of the exam room. Dietitian Maggie Neola |
| 1:48.7 | from the Barnard Medical Center is back to help us sort out these claims. And she's going |
| 1:54.4 | to teach us just how dramatic the nutrition content of chocolate can change as it goes |
| 1:59.9 | from raw cacao all the way to milk chocolate. Also, I was recently lucky enough to be |
| 2:07.1 | able to chat with former actor and environmental advocate Susie Amis Cameron. She's got a new |
| 2:13.2 | book out and the concept of it is just incredible. The book's title is OMD, the simple plant-based |
| 2:21.2 | program to save your health, save your waistline, and save the planet. Here's the best part, |
| 2:28.4 | right? The OMD, it stands for one meal a day. And in her conversation and in the book, she outlines |
| 2:37.8 | her philosophy that eating just one fewer meal that has meat and dairy in it every day, just one |
| 2:44.1 | fewer meal can dramatically reduce a person's carbon footprint and improve their health. And if |
| 2:53.2 | you didn't know, Susie Cameron is married to director James Cameron. Now, when they first got |
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