No-Guilt Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day!

It's Mom's Day! And along with breakfast in bed, most lucky moms will find themselves at the receiving end of these two typical gifts:

Chocolate! Flowers.

But are those the healthiest of gifts? Flowers from a florist won't generally cause allergies. It's the grasses, weeds and trees outside that are more likely to make Mom sneeze…. Chocolate is a different matter right? Isn't it bad for Mom's teeth, skin and overall health? Not necessarily. It's true—chocolate has often been blamed for acne…yet no studies have proven a connection. It's more likely hormones and heredity are the villains in the pimple factor. Some Moms might worry that chocolate, like coffee, could give them a caffeine buzz. Yet one ounce of dark chocolate has only 28 milligrams of caffeine. While a regular cup of coffee can hold between 95 to 140. And what about Mom's worry over cavities? While it's true that anything loaded with sugar will create problems if teeth are not properly brushed, the tannins in chocolate may fight the bacteria responsible for tooth decay. But the biggest reason to give your Mom a heart full of chocolate on Mother's Day is that it's good for her heart!

There is evidence that a little bit of dark chocolate can have a favorable effect on our blood vessels. It can lower our blood pressure.

But being heart healthy doesn't make chocolate any better for Mom's waistline. So be sure to tell her to choose a small piece of dark – not white or milk chocolate—so she can get the heart healthy benefits of: Increasing her blood flow; Improving her HDL, the "good" cholesterol; Reducing her blood pressure, And increasing antioxidants in her blood. That's because cocoa contains significant amounts of plant flavonoids.—the same heart healthy antioxidants found in red wine, green tea, and various veggies and fruits. In fact one study showed a cocoa drink has almost twice the antioxidants as red wine and up to three times the amount found in green tea.