The study looked at diet, calorie intake, and body mass index (BMI) of almost 1,000 participants.

“Our findings appear to add to a body of information suggesting that the composition of calories, not just the number of them, matters for determining their ultimate impact on weight,” said Golomb. “Even though chocolate is loaded with calories, it contains ingredients that may favor weight loss rather than fat synthesis.”

Interestingly that link remained even when other factors, such as exercise, were taken into account. And it appears it is how often you eat chocolate that is important, rather than how much of it you eat.

The study found no link with the quantity that was consumed.

In addition, Dr Golomb and her team believe that antioxidant compounds found in raw cacao, called catechins, can even improve lean muscle mass and reduce weight. Mice fed for 15 days with epicatechin (present in dark chocolate) had improved exercise performance and observable changes to their muscle composition. Dr. Golomb says clinical trials are now needed to see if this is the case in humans.

The type of chocolate consumed is important. Most chocolate used in candy bars, chocolate milk, snacks and desserts contain low percentages of cocoa and large amounts of sugar and fat, which can cause obvious problems such as weight gain and onset of diabetes.

For the health benefits of chocolate be sure you eat dark chocolate which is listed as 70% or higher. The percentage indicates the amount of raw cacao in the product. The more raw chocolate the less sugar and fat. And drink Mayesa – a great way of indulging in healthy chocolate because it’s made from healthy organic raw cacao.

Mayesa is all about indulging in chocolate – healthy chocolate! Made from organic cacao – one of the healthiest foods on the planet – Mayesa is chocked full of good things for you, including fiber, calcium, potassium, vitamin D and those great immunity-boosting antioxidants. And a bonus – Mayesa is dairy-free, gluten-free and soy-free!

What does a delicious Mayesa drink do for you? Besides allowing you to pamper yourself with decadent chocolate, you’ll also find that it energizes you, it replenishes you, it increases clarity, and it suppresses hunger.

A healthy chocolate Mayesa drink is great for breakfast, a mid-morning pick-me-up, as a way over the mid-afternoon slump, and is perfect for dessert in the evening. You’ll love giving it to your kids, too – knowing that they can now have a chocolate drink that is actually good for them.

Mayesa comes in two delicious flavors – Original Cacao, and Cacao Mint. (And here’s a secret – keep watch for the introduction of three new flavors this summer!)

It’s so great to have you here to visit. Please feel free to browse around and learn more about healthy cacao.

Here’s how to enter our Party giveaway:
Browse our web site at mayesa.com to learn about Mayesa and organic cacao, then  leave a comment on our blog below mentioning something you learned about healthy chocolate Mayesa that you think other mommy bloggers – and daddy bloggers, too! – would like to know.

Want extra entries into the contest? Do the following..!

• Follow us on Twitter and leave us a message on  @drinkmayesa telling us your favorite thing about Mayesa and/or
• “Like” us on Facebook and post on our wall what your favorite thing about Mayesa is.

Make sure we have a way to reach you, by leaving your email in the comment. One winner will be chosen at random by using random.org. The contest ends April 20th at 11:59 EDT. We will announce the winner Monday April 23rd.

And, don’t forget to head over to the Ultimate Blog Party (#UBP12)! It’s a chance to win another 12-pack of delicious healthy chocolate Mayesa drinks! You’ll also discover many other great blog sites, and there’s prizes galore!

This is our first year participating in the Ultimate Blog Party, so, welcome! And thanks for learning more about Mayesa – the healthy chocolate drink!

Mayesa is packed with great nutrition, starting with organic cacao – the purest form of chocolate. This is blended together with such things as pea protein and rice, along  with special spices, for an unusually indulgent nutritional source.

And that’s just the beginning of the amazing nutrition of Mayesa.

Here’s more: Mayesa contains no cholesterol and no trans fats.

What Mayesa does contain is:

1.  Antioxidants – Cacao contains a higher
concentration by weight of antioxidants than acai, blueberries, pomegranates, goji berries, or even red wine

2. Magnesium – supports the heart, brain, and digestive system

3. Iron – 314% of RDA of Iron per ounce serving.

4. Theobromine – dilates the cardiovascular system, making the heart’s job easier

5. Anandamide – An endorphin known as the “Bliss Chemical” that is released naturally by the body after exercise and is found in Cacao

Nutritional Bonus! Mayesa is dairy-free, gluten-free,soy-free, and VEGAN!

Isn’t it great to have a way of making sure you get great nutrition on a daily basis, and indulge in healthy chocolate at the same time? Can’t beat it!

About National Nutrition Month

National Nutrition Month is an annual campaign sponsored by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics to promote nutrition awareness and education. It originated in 1973 as “National Nutrition Week” and expanded to the month-long observance in 1980 in response to growing public interest in nutrition.

The theme changes each year, but it always focuses on the importance of making informed food choices and developing sound eating and physical activity habits. This year’s theme, “Eat Right with Color,” provides an easy way to focus on improving eating habits — simply include plenty of color on your plate. And the rich brown of healthy organic cacao is a great color to add to your nutritional palette!

And what does that mean for you? We’ll be talking with representatives from many different types of businesses who sell healthy products just like Mayesa. These businesses include conventional supermarket and grocery stores, gourmet specialty retailers, natural product chains, health practitioners, and natural food restaurants.

It’s amazing that just 30 years ago, natural and organic products were sold mostly by independent and co-op retailers, and the size of the industry was estimated at $2.4 billion. Today, natural and organic products are sold in almost every retail channel, and the industry is worth nearly $68 billion, according to Natural Foods Merchandiser’s “2009 Market Overview.”

We’re excited to be attending the largest natural, organic and healthy product trade show in the country!  This will bring our wonderful healthy chocolate Mayesa drinks to the attention of thousands of industry professionals.  Expo West will see our debut of three new flavors, and our brand-new packaging!

And soon you’ll have many more options of where to buy your favorite Mayesa drinks!

When the Aztecs conquered the Mesoamerican lands in the 1400s, they, too, became enamored with the great cacao bean, and required that the people they conquered pay their tribute in cacao seeds. The Aztecs favored cacao beans above gold, and the beans soon became the society’s form of money.

Since the Mayans and Aztecs also used cacao beans, and the chocolate drink made from them, as gifts to their gods in religious ceremonies, you could say that the practice of giving chocolate as a precious gift originated here.

Used as it was in their religion, the Mayans and Aztecs considered the cacao bean and the chocolate drink made from it to be sacred. For this reason only the elite of their societies were allowed the privilege of drinking the beverage. These included the rulers, priests, and decorated soldiers, with an honored merchant occasionally included.

Enter the Spanish Conquistadors, who marched across Mesoamerica beginning in the first part of the 16th Century. Cortez had been sent by the Spanish king to seek out the gold known to be heavily used by the Aztecs. So Cortez and his men were surprised to find that the Aztecs did not use gold as their form of money, but instead prized the lowly looking cacao bean.

After watching the Aztecs enjoying a chocolate drink, the Spaniards indulged, became fans, and started shipping cacao beans back to Spain, resulting in Europe’s first contact with chocolate. Interestingly, although Columbus actually brought cacao beans back to the Spanish court years earlier, the Spaniards had no idea what to do with them, and it was left to Cortez to learn from the Aztecs the rich secret of cacao.

Anytime you are looking for the perfect chocolate gift, the perfect answer is Mayasa  - it’s  not only delicious but healthy chocolate, too!

Image Credit: maya-aztec.com

This year you can keep that resolution – because it will be fun, delicious, and maybe even decadent! Who wouldn’t want to stick to a resolution like that?

From the Ochanomizu University in Tokyo to the University of Cambridge in England, and dozens of universities and research labs across the United States, scientifically-designed medical studies are showing that there is a positive correlation between healthy organic cacao and a reduction in the risk of developing heart disease.

The flavanols contained in cacao have been found to act as “cardioprotective”  agents. Although the mechanisms behind this effect are still under investigation, cacao is thought to possibly exert its benefits on cardiovascular health by activation of nitric oxide and antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects.

The flavanols have chemical structures favoring antioxidant actions such as free radical scavenging and chelation of metals. In addition, it appears that the antioxidants in cacao can prevent the oxidation of LDL-cholesterol relating to the mechanism of protection in heart disease.

In a study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, results showed 47% improvement in “endothelium function,” which measures how much the arteries dilated. There was also indication that there was an increase in cells that are produced in the bone marrow and that can develop into the structural cells that line and repair the arteries and veins.

It’s important to note that it is raw cacao that is indicated as an element that helps reduce heart disease. The more sugars and fats that are added to chocolate as it is refined and used to manufacture chocolate products used in hot chocolate beverages, chocolate milk, candy and other chocolate sweets, the further away you get from the health benefits of raw cacao.

Drinking delicious, healthy chocolate Mayesa – in its Original Cacao flavor and its Cacao Mint flavor – can both satisfy your chocolate cravings, and offer possible health benefits as well!

Today the FDA defines cacao as the source bean, and cocoa powder (along with chocolate liquor and cocoa butter) as products.  At the time these products are processed from the cacao bean, they are still raw and unsweetened.

It’s when a long refining process that adds sugar, other flavorings, and chemicals to lengthen shelf life are added to the chocolate product that “cocoa” veers widely from natural, raw, cacao. And during the refining process much of the antioxidants are destroyed by the heat.

Since that is what most consumers think of as cocoa, that’s where the difference lies.

Most chocolate candy, cakes, cookies, ice cream and milk sold to the American public contain only 10% raw cocoa and the other 90% is made up of high caloric, high carbohydrate  sugar, cream, oils, etc.  Many of these commercial items contain transfats, and up to 40 grams of sugar.

For example, “milk chocolate” contains just 10% pure chocolate liquor while dark chocolate has a minimum of 75%. When sold as candy bars, both, of course, also contain sugars and fats.

This is why it’s been hammered into our heads for years that to eat healthy is to stay away from chocolate, and no wonder since chocolate in the supermarket form has had most of the original nutritional qualities processed out.

Mayesa uses organic raw cacao. In this state cacao contains the highest concentration of antioxidants by weight – more than acai, blueberries, pomegranates, red wine and goji berries.  It is also a natural source of iron, magnesium, and theobromine (which supports the cardiovascular system).

When you drink Mayesa, you are getting all of the rich chocolate flavor and natural nutrients of cacao, and none of the refined sugars, transfats , and nutrient loss of that “other cocoa.”

Photo Credit: zupas.com

Cacao Flower

Sometimes something that tastes good really is good for you, too. And that’s the amazing fact about chocolate. In our article “A Healthy Chocolate Drink” we discussed the health benefits of chocolate. But exactly where does “chocolate” come from?

What we know as “chocolate” comes from the cacao tree, indigenous to the rainforests of South America. It originated in clumps along riverbanks in the Amazon basin on the eastern tropical slopes of the Andes. Today the cacao tree is cultivated all across the equatorial regions of the globe, in as far-flung places as Madagascar, the Congo, and Western Samoa.

The cacao tree requires some shade to grow, and thus is not damaging to rainforests, needing the rainforest canopy to protect it from the severe tropical sun. Large business cacao plantations, however, often clear areas for easier access to the trees and thus more profitable harvesting.

But many organic cacao farmers work with nature in assuring optimal growing conditions, creating smaller and “wilder” plantations. Utilizing the natural forest canopy not only protects the tree, but supports the habitat of the insects that pollinate the blossoms, as these insects also require humid shade.

Cacao seeds grow in pods that can range from 5 to 18 inches, and contain 30-50 white seeds. The seeds become reddish brown during the drying process. (There actually is a rare species of cacao in which the seeds remain white, most notably cultivated in Nicaragua.)

Interestingly, inside the pod the seeds are encased in a yellow, slippery pulp that is sweet and edible but tastes nothing like chocolate. In nature the pulp as an incentive for fruit-eating animals to break open the pod. The animals, especially monkeys, eat the pulp and spit out the seeds, thus dispersing the seeds and ensuring propagation of the tree species.

Cacao Seeds Inside Pod

The cacao plant was first given its botanical name, Theobroma cacao, by Swedish natural scientist Carl Linnaeus in his original classification of the plant kingdom. Linnaeus most appropriately used the Mayan word “cacao” which means “food of the gods.”

Which is exactly how we think of Mayesa – any drink that is rich chocolate and so chocked full of antioxidants and omegas that it’s really good for you – can only be a “food of the gods!”

Photo Credit Top: xocoatl.org

Photo Credit Bottom: Wikepedia.org

For a number of years soy has been touted as the perfect health food – a natural source of high protein.

However, recently a number of studies done by reputable institutions, including Cornell University, are showing that, in fact, soy is can be rather dangerous.

It turns out that soybeans contain a number of disagreeable substances. These include:

1. Phytates, acids that block the body’s uptake of essential minerals such as like calcium, iron and zinc.

2. Potent enzyme inhibitors that block the uptake of trypsin and other enzymes that the body needs for protein digestion.

3. Hemagglutinin, a clot promoting substance that causes red blood cells to clump together so they are unable to properly absorb oxygen for distribution to the body’s tissues.

Soy has also been linked to the explosion of thyroid disease in this country.

According to Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD in a study by the Harvard School of Public Health, soy oil is the most widely used oil in the U.S., accounting for more than 75 percent of our total vegetable fats and oil intake. And most of our soy products are now genetically engineered.

Beyond these concerns, there has been a huge rise in soy allergies such as with wheat allergies. Soy is now considered among the top eight allergens that can cause an immediate hypersensitive reaction.

According to a number of allergy specialists, many soy allergy reactions can also occur up to 2 days after consuming soy products, including sleep disturbances, incontinence, sinus and ear infections, irritability, joint pain, chronic fatigue, and gastrointestinal upset.

We at Mayesa are dedicated to offering a product that is truly healthy – in all ways for all members of your family. And now you know why we proudly announce that both Cacao Original Mayesa and Cacao Mint Mayesa are soy-free! Everybody can use and enjoy our healthy chocolate drink.