Eat Chocolate, It Tastes Good, I Mean Its Healthy!

Chocolate, ‘Part of a Balanced Diet’?

By: Mike Nizza

In a British newspaper today, a 37-year-old man claimed to have settled into an extraordinary lust for Mars chocolate bars. A 12-bar-a-day habit, which began 17 years ago, is fortified with orange juice and vitamins, Keith Sorrell claimed.

Far from some dire plea, Anne Sidnell of the British Nutrition Foundation offered a surprisingly evenhanded assessment. “He seems to get enough vitamin C and the bars could provide enough calcium and protein,” she told The Sun. “But he’s missing out on fiber, which will have an effect as he ages.”

The company offered another surprise, warning against such extreme loyalty to their product while also making clear that some was clearly warranted. “We encourage people to enjoy chocolate as part of a balanced diet,” a spokesperson said.

Chocolate? Part of a balanced diet? The assertion is vague enough to be true, of course. And Mars Inc. happens to be the chocolate company that is crusading to find ways to prove its product is healthier than widely assumed.

Two years ago, the company unveiled CocoaVia, a chocolate bar rich in flavanols, a natural chemical that has antioxidant properties. The product line was expanded a year later, not that there was any doubt that Mars officials were very serious about the idea of healthy chocolate. From a New York Times article in 2005:

“Heart disease is the No. 1 killer in the world, and chocolate is the No. 1 favorite ingredient in the world,” said Jim Cass, Mars’s vice president of marketing. “When you put those two giant macro trends together, we know this is a big idea.”

While boldly recommending two servings of CocoaVia a day, Mars officials were also aware that they had a steep hill to climb in winning over consumers. Here are two revealing quotes from a 2004 piece in The New York Times magazine titled Eat Chocolate, Live Longer?:

As Carl Keen, at U.C. Davis, put it: “If Mars were some sort of juice company, they would find this far easier to market, but they’re in a difficult position because they’re a confectionary company. The marketing here is much, much more difficult than if they were selling a fruit or a vegetable.” [Harold Schmitz, chief science officer of Mars], too, has no illusions about what’s ahead. “Nutrition is already controversial,” he said, “and you can imagine that chocolate nutrition is about 1,000 times more controversial.”

Nevertheless, the company is aggressively pushing forward by funding independent studies on the health properties of chocolate. “Mars has become the world leader in cocoa science,” one official recently told The Pioneer Press.

Last week, people lined up in London to join a Mars-sponsored study that asked them to “eat a bar of chocolate daily for a year, guilt-free and all in the name of science,” as one paper put it. Indeed, Mr. Schmitz said in a recent interview that more than 100 peer-reviewed papers had been published on chocolate with financial help from Mars.

Last week, one of the studies sparked promising headlines for diabetics who love chocolate. Flavanols may increase circulation, scientists said, though more research was needed before any final conclusions. Mars may have smiled at the result, but it came with a note of caution from the study’s author to diabetics to stay away from the chocolate for now.

“This research focuses on what’s at the true heart of the discussion on “healthy chocolate,” Malte Kelm said in a news release. “It’s about cocoa flavanols, the naturally occurring compounds in cocoa.”

Aside from the scientific questions that remain, there’s a supply problem as well. The product in stores — and in the pockets and cabinets of Britain’s chief chocoholic, Mr. Sorrell — contains far less flavanols than in the stuff in the labs at the moment.

Source: The New York Times

Poem by Sheikh Muhammad al-Yaqoubi

Poem Dedicated to al-Imam Abul Hasan ash-Shadhili Radiya Allah ‘anhu
September 5th, 2006
Dedicated to al-Imam Abul Hasan ash-Shadhili Radiya Allah ‘anhu

By Muhammad al-Yaqoubi

This is a rough translation of the poem that I wrote yesterday (14th Aug.) on the way to the shrine of al-Imam Abul Hasan ash-Shadhili, may Allah be satisfied with him and may He allow us to benefit from his secrets and knowledge. The shrine is on the old hajj road in the southern part of Egypt five hour drive from Luxur through a town called Idfu. We were five – four people accompanied me from Cairo. When we were few hours away from the shrine, I found the words coming on my mouth so I jotted them down. When we arrived, I recited the poem before him in the blessed maqam where his presence was felt and it was overwhelming. I spent sometime making du’a for many people and I mentioned most of my student by name. The song in Arabic is written after the pattern of the famous song (ya imam rusli yaa sanadi).

Poem follows below…

The Qutb of all Qutbs throughout times is Abul Hasan ash-Shadhili; An Ocean of Secrets and an Imam of Guidance For whom the soul is the least price.

He led to the Master and climbed
in virtue to highest peaks
And brought in this discipline what
Made it more august than all branches.

Knowing Allah is his End,
So follow him through this path
And the Messenger of Allah is his Means
So, stick to his Sunnas.

The foundation of his way is built
On the Purification of the Heart from all stains So, journey with the Single Name O, You, Sufi! And seek assistance from Allah.

Be absent, and annihilate from all beings, as No one remains save he who is annihilated in Him; And enter the doors of the Unseen and ask Whatever you want, but guard the secrets

Drink the glass of Gnosis and taste
The Secret of Tawheed and be not
Make due the love for the men of Allah
And the love for the Imam of all of them Abul Hasan

Stick yourself to the pure thresholds
If you come to Humaithara, where is the home And in ‘Aydhaab stop and sink your cheeks in the soil And put your soul in the grave and a guarantee

Be thankful to Allah and pray on
Taha in secret and in public
And on Ahlul bayt all,
O friend and give salutations while you humble yourself

The son of al-Yaqoubi has come with
No claims, dressed only in the cloths of his coffin So, turn to him O my master And to all of us with your bounties