Chocolate poisons the blood and parasites??

[charika]

Hi I just read a thread on chocolate and she said that it was so good for you (raw of course). But I was just curious if anyone else has heard what I've heard about chocalate. An alternative or natural doctor told my mom that chocolate poisons the blood and to stop giving it to kids. And someone who specializes in health food and works at a health food store told me to stop giving chocalate milk to my kids because it gives you parasites...This is the first time I've heard such scary and serious things about chocolate. Anyone else know about these two things regarding chocolate???
Thanks:confused:
Charika

[silverundertone]

I wouldnt doubt that ANYTHING containing or made up of milk would give you parasites, among many other health problems.
As far as chocolate goes, I havent heard of anything in relation to it causing problems.

[rawbeliever]

I've done the raw cacao thing, and I have a lot of doubts about cacao as a superfood. If it's cooked, the caffeine is definitely an issue. If it's raw, it still contains theobromine and another stimulant whose name I can't remember right now...but eat some raw cacao and judge for yourself. You might feel just fine on it, but I felt jittery and icky.

[Shoney]

are pretty nasty, and it wouldn't surprise me if the parasites mentioned did come from the milk, although they would be killed during the pasteurization process. The real issue with the dairy they use in chocolate, though, are the pus cells. There is a legally allowable limit of pus cells in cow's milk and dairy products due to the high number of diary cows infected with mastitis. Just the thought of it, pasteurized or not, is enough to keep me away from cow's milk.

As for the chocolate itself, who knows.

[charika]

I was giving my kids chocolate almond milk and now they drink chocolate soy milk.. So I don't think she was refering to the cow's milk, but the chocolate itself...But I'm with you...who knows??....
thanks! :)

[Trolltyget]

One thing that I've learned the hard way about cacao is that it can make you feel really sick. The fact that Theobromine can poison dogs and kill them if they eat to much of it is pretty common knowledge. But you hardly ever hear about humans getting sick from theobromine. I now know that humans can have really bad reactions from it (although not fatal as far as I know). Both my sister and I have gotten these reactions sometimes when we have eaten a new brand of cacao. It seems as if the cacaobeans has got a huge variety in theobromine contents, so some beans have very low levels while others have high levels of theobromine. That makes it very tricky, cause you can never now before you try it. The reaction that we have gotten is severe heart palpatation, swetting, anxiety, excessive urination, nausea, vomiting and so on. This really got me scared the first time! Luckily this all went away after a day or so. Now I am extremely careful when trying a new brand of cacao and I eat very small amounts in the beginning.
Dont want that kind of reaction again!