Healthy Chocolate | Video

Van Tieu | 2/18/2013

Staying healthy means maintaining a healthy diet, getting exercise and eating your fruits and veggies, hold the salt and sugar. Rarely do people like eating food that`s good for you, but one sweet treat can help you fight heart disease.

Chocolate lovers rejoice. If you love chocolate, it will love you back.

"Chocolate is healthy for your heart. It can lower blood pressure. It can positively affect your cholesterol and it can keep you trim and reduce heart attack, strokes, and congestive heart failure," said cardiologist Dr. Richard Howard.

Sounds too good to be true, right? Well, yes. There`s a catch. Doctors say you have to check the label for cacao content.

"It`s dark chocolate. If you have 70 percent or more cacao in the chocolate, these are the types of chocolate that can be helpful for you," Howard said. "Milk chocolate doesn`t give you the same benefit. It has too much sugar in it, more fat and milk."

Moderation is key. Howard says eating one to two ounces of dark chocolate is healthy. It is full of antioxidants that helps keep the blood flowing. And here`s a bonus: it is also an appetite suppressant.

"People who eat dark chocolate also generally eat less calories with a meal."

If it`s dark chocolate, there`s nothing wrong with eating dessert first.

Howard says dark chocolate is just an addition to a healthy lifestyle. Eating healthy and getting cardio exercise are the mainstays of preventing heart disease.

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