Customer Reviews

Chocolate Unwrapped: The Surprising Health Benefits of America's Favorite Passion

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"For 95 percent of its three-thousand-year history, chocolate has been a drink and a health food." ~ pg. 8

"Chocolate Unwrapped" is an intriguing little book that will completely convince you that chocolate is a healthy food. Dark chocolate that is! It is amazing to learn that chocolate has more antioxidants than blueberries, oranges, onions or eggplant.

Rowan Jacobsen has a pleasant writing style and draws you into each chapter with tantalizing details. There is a brief discussion about caffeine, theobromine, serotonin, tryptophan, phenylethylamine and anandamide.

If you are concerned about labor practices and environmental issues, Rowan Jacobsen gives information on where to buy the best chocolates so you can eat them guilt free. There is also a chapter of recipes which include a few savory recipes along with the sweet.

Overall, I loved this book and felt the information was presented in a very pleasing manner. It is well organized and covers all the main facts you could ever want to know about how chocolate is made.

If you read this book and are still interested in more information, I can recommend:

Naked Chocolate: The Astonishing Truth About the World's Greatest Food

Chocolate: A Bittersweet Saga of Dark and Light

The True History of Chocolate

Chocolate: An Exquisite Indulgence (Miniature Edition)

To try some of the best chocolates in the world:

Leonidas Belgian Chocolates: 1 lb Signature General Assortment

Dagoba Chai (37%) Crystalized Ginger, Chai Spices Bar, 2.0-Ounces Bars (Pack of 12)

~The Rebecca Review

It sounds like an oxymoron to most people when you say "Healthy Chocolate". But everything in this book is true, the antioxidants in good chocolate do wonders. Cocoa is a natural anti-inflammatory, and since over 200 diseases start with inflammation and oxidation of the cells, chocolate can help with so many things. I have seen it first hand with so many people I know, who used to have fibro, allergies, diabetes, athritis...amazing. It truly is the "food of the Gods". Don't go eat the candy kind, though, it HAS to be cold-processed chocolate. See [...] for details. I also recommend Dr. Steve Warren's book on this topic, the Healthy Chocolate Desk Reference, he has truly amazing detail in his research!

Loved the book, a great gift for the chocolate lover in your life! It's very well written and very informative in addition to having some really good recipes included in it.

Congratulations to the author on an excellently researched, very readable book about Chocolate. The title alone is clever and the subtitle reassuring.
Not only is it wonderfully organized on the Contents page, it is a very enjoyable read. While I could not be described as a "chocoholic" I know many and I totally enjoy ingesting good chocolate from the bar variety to the many delicious ways of including it in our diet.
The recipes included in the text are different from the usual variety and add to the pleasure of the text. It will make an excellent gift as well as owning one personally.

This book really opened my eyes. I've always loved chocolate. Now I enjoy eating it even more, knowing that it's actually good for me. If you are a chocoholic like me, you need this book!

You need to take some of the more ecstatic conclusions drawn about the health benefits of chocolate contained in this book with a significant pinch of salt. However, unlike in some other books that purport to describe the health benefits of chocolate, at least this one does refer to scientific studies that have been carried out to back up claims, even if it is not always clear exactly which studies are being referred to. By and large the author does not overestimate the potential health benefits of chocolate, but occasionally she uses sweeping statements in favour that are at odds with the scientific evidence she has just cited. That being said this is not a bad book. I would recommend it as a starter on the subject - then use the bibliography at the back of the book to go into more detail. Scientifically proved benefits of chocolate (in the amounts normally consumed by adults) are still relatively limited, but, the fact that science seems to indicate that such a wonderfully indulgent product as chocolate (and I refer to high cocoa solid chcolate here, not milk chocolate) is at worst neutral, rather than bad for you, should be seen as good news in itself!

Wow. This book really opened my eyes. I've been telling everyone about it. You'll never look at chocolate the same again! Now I try to eat some dark chocolate every day.