Unfortunately the caffein in chocolate gives me atrial fibrillation.

Its funny isnt it but if I have a caffeinated coffee I have terrible reactions but chocolate.....well thats just a love affair!!

Love chocolate, fortunately although I have atrial fib, the chocolate doesnt have any effect, but I have to have decaffinated tea hah!!

Hooray at last good news

Any excuse!!

There is more caffeine in coffee then there is in chocolate. They used to extract it from Cocoa, but then found it was both easier and more plentiful in coffee.

They also used to extract Theobroma for use in heart medication, so I would think it is that rather then the caffeine that would give the Arterial Fibrillation.

I could not access the link above without registering, so did not bother. However, Cocoa is full of trace elements that are good for you. You can also buy Cocoa Nibs (raw Cocoa) from most health food stores. Not as tasty as Chocolate, but very good for you.


I was in the Cocoa Business for 23 years, so picked up quite a bit of knowledge (as well as a liking) for the stuff.

Sorry about that but you can register for free and then get access to a lot of interesting stuff.
What an interesting business, I would be in heaven. Thank goodness for me that I prefer the dark to milk which I have always found to be too sickly. Thanks for the tip about the Nibs.

I have thrown caution to the wind and joined the website. Quite rightly it points that some chocolate has sugar, milk fat and other fats included in the mix. In the UK chocolate can have up to 10% non cocoa fat added to it. The Europeans tried to ban that and stated that we could not call our chocolate, chocolate. We one the battle and kept the 10%. Quite a few of the Europeans then followed suit. In Sweden they tried a substitute fat that was inert, so you could eat chocolate all day and not put on an ounce. The only problem was that it had laxative properties.

Cocoa butter and most chocolate melts at body temperature. This could be a problem in some locations and you may recall station vending machine chocolate being rather hard despite the weather. That is because they used to add Sal Fat to the 'chocolate'. In the 70's Mars produced the Banjo bar which had 'Chocolate Flavour Coating', but the Cocoa content was actually quite minuscule. Coberine is another CBE (Cocoa Butter Equivalent) substitute fat that has been used.

Why do they use some of these fats ?? Because they were considerably cheaper then Cocoa butter. More profit for the manufacturer.

So, your best bet is to stick to a dark chocolate say 90%. Don't be tempted by the 99% that you can get on the continent, as it is so full of Cocoa Fat that it just sticks to your tongue, mouth etc. and is not a pleasant taste.

Thanks great article!

Having read all this, I now want some immediately! Mary F x