Do chocolate bunnies make you happy – or do they just hop right onto your hips?

Is Chocolate Really a Happiness Maker? what’s up

Scientifically: nothing. There is not a single reliable piece of evidence (causal evidence) for the assured “happiness-making effect” of chocolate. From a purely emotional point of view, there is certainly something to it in individual cases. Because if you eat chocolate out of frustration or grief as a habit in order to swallow down your bad emotions in the true sense of the word, you will feel much better on “culinary cloud 9” in this Chocoholics moment – because chocolate is a high-calorie and therefore delicious “comfort food” that body provides a lot of readily available energy with little bite (and it likes that very much).

Which chocolate has the strongest effect on our mood?

Clearly, these are the varieties that taste the best. Because the more “tailor-made” the food satisfies the individual physical (or, in the case of emotional eating, also mental) needs, the greater the noticeable feel-good effect that our body’s own reward center in the brain (the “limbic system”) generates. But that has nothing to do with special strains.

For example, if you don’t like very dark chocolate, which is often touted as “overhealthy”, you won’t feel any positive effect on your mood – but certainly a negative one, because everything you don’t like creates an unpleasant feeling, and that not only in the mouth, but in general.

How many calories does chocolate actually have?

A simple rule of thumb is: A 100-gram bar has about 500 kcal, sometimes more, sometimes less. The more nuts there are, the faster the calorie content increases.

To what extent can chocolate contribute to increasing well-being?

That is absolutely individual. The more you have learned in childhood how “chocolate can comfort you over bad experiences and situations”, the greater the effect of this “emotional eating”. But one should not misuse food as hunger-free “soul food”, at least not too often.

The following contributes much better to increasing well-being: Really exhaust the real, physical biological hunger for chocolate – and then enjoy the delicious pieces with all your senses and full awareness, slowly and carefully. That feels really good, because then our body releases the “comfortable groaning from the depths of the stomach”.

Which alternatives to chocolate can also provide feelings of happiness?

Generating feelings of happiness is by no means an “exclusive right” for chocolate. In principle, all high-calorie, i.e. very high-energy foods can be considered for emotional eating, the hunger-free soul-comforting food – because these have a short-term positive effect on the psyche; whether sweet and greasy or savory and salty. On the one hand it’s sweet and juicy gummy bears or creamy, creamy, melt-in-the-mouth ice cream, on the other hand crispy fries with a fat cheeseburger or a creamy, cheese-fat-dripping pizza.

With physiologically normal, pleasurable eating to sustain life – i.e. with real, physical hunger and the rule is: the bigger the better – all foods and meals ensure authentic, biological feelings of happiness that taste really good and are well tolerated (i.e. can be digested well). ).