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M: Though should chocolate lovers everywhere be rejoicing today, Samantha Heller is a contributing editor of Health Magazine and a clinical nutritionist at New York University Medical Center. Hey Samantha, good morning.
W: Good morning.
M: People tend to do the one plus one equals two, and consider things OK. I just heard this news and I’m going out buying a lot of chocolate. Bad idea?
W: It’s a bad idea. And the reason is that the way we process chocolate in this country--the way we dilute with a lot of sugar and fat takes out a lot of the healthy compounds.
M: And I am basically talking about that dark chocolate is good for you. In this country there are more people who tend to consume milk chocolate.
W: That’s right. That’s diluted and it’s treated to take the bitterness of dark chocolate out. And that’s also taking out the healthy compound that’s in it. You can take, like cocoa powder and make your own hot chocolate and you’re getting some of the benefits.
M: But you don’t dispute the fact that this flavonoid seeder found in chocolate may be beneficial to health.
W: It may absolutely be beneficial but what we are finding out in research is when you isolate a compound from food that’s healthy in the food, it may not have the effect by itself in your body that we would anticipate.
M: So, more research needs to be done?
W: So much more research, yes.
M: While we have you here, we wanna talk about some other foods in the news if you will. I’ve been hearing so much. Really this has been in the last couple of years. Green tea. Everybody is talking about it. You’ve seen it in advertise. People I know have said that stop drinking coffee in the morning, I’m drinking green tea. What’s the potential benefit here?
W: Green tea is packed with polyphenols. These are chemicals that actually help fight disease, high in anti-oxidants. Green tea has been showing to be anti-carcinogenic, anti-tumorgenic and may even help prevent cavities.
M: No caffeine? Is there caffeine?
W: There is some caffeine sure.
M: So by switching from coffee to green tea in the morning might we be doing some, helping ourselves?
W: You certainly might be. I don’t think you will get the caffeine kick that you get from coffee, but the green tea is a great choice.
M: Alright, we’ve got a couple of other things we wanna talk about. First is ginger. What’s the benefit to ginger?
W: Ginger, again, anti-nausea, anti-motion sickness.
M: Actually a lot of pregnant women use ginger for morning sickness.
W: Yeah. It’s great for that. You can have ginger tea. It’s versatile and also some of the anti-inflammatories may be good for people with arthritis.
M: Is this turmeric?
W: Yes. It’s the bright yellow spice in here. And there’s a compound called curcumin which has been shown to fight cancer. It’s very potent, very strong.
M: We all know that fruits and vegetables are good for us, but you in particular wanna just mention today the cruciferous. That’s the vegetables which are things like broccoli and Brussels sprouts.
W: That’s right. Now these have compounds called indoles and others that are very anti-cancergenic, protect against stomach, colorectal cancer, lung cancer and breast cancer and may help detoxify the liver disease. These are very important, very helpful.
M: Down on the end of the table, I just wanna say here basically you say anything that comes or as a product from other animals is not good except in small amounts.
W: That’s right. And the reason is that it has artery-clogging fat, saturated fat, not good for you. But the lower, non-fat choices are good. Fat-free ice cream, cheese, etc.
M: And just as a way of event ending here, for years, when I was feeling that I was getting a cold, I started taking Echinacea though I never felt better. And now we are hearing word that perhaps I wasn’t alone.
W: Well, you are not alone, but actually with Echinacea, they were looking at colds that may have effects on respiratory. We are not sure yet and there are different kinds of Echinacea.
M: Alright, Samantha Heller, thanks very much.