Eating 44 Pounds of Chocolate Is as Good For You as Exercising?

This is one of those stories that sounds like amazing news but gets less and less amazing with every detail. But that’s a spoiler . . . for a few brief, shining moments, bask in the glory of this sentence:

Chocolate is better for you than exercise!

Now that you’ve heard it . . . time to kill your dreams.

Chocolate contains a chemical compound called flavanols. Researchers at Columbia University and New York University found that a large dose of them were better for the brain than exercising.

They increased the blood flow to the brain, improved people’s memory, and made them sharper overall.

BUT . . . it took a TON of flavanols to do it. The researchers used a concentrated form of cocoa powder for the test. To get the effects at home, you’d have to eat 44 POUNDS of chocolate in a DAY.

And while that’s better for your brain than exercise . . . it’s way worse for your body. So . . . until we can get our hands on that concentrated cocoa powder, this study basically has no effect on our lives.