DailyDirt: The Unquestioned Benefits Of Chocolate
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
In a few days, a lot of chocolate will be eaten by kids (and maybe their parents), and there will also be a lot of discounted candy and chocolate on sale in many grocery stores. Just so that we don’t feel too bad about indulging on Halloween treats, here are a few studies that might ease our guilt for a while.
- The chocolate consumption of an entire country can be correlated with the chances of winning Nobel prizes. This study brought to you by the Correlation Is Not Causation Foundation. Seriously. [url]
- Chocolate can be made even healthier by replacing its fat content with fruit juice. By the addition of a Pickering emulsion of fruit juices and milk, a low-fat chocolate can maintain its chocolatey taste and texture — which will just encourage chocoholics to eat even more chocolate than they should…. [url]
- If you’re looking for an excuse to eat more chocolate, a study of 1,000 adults found a correlation that people who eat chocolate more frequently tend to be thinner. To really complete this study, the researchers would need to compare chocolate eaters with non-chocolate eaters — and come up with a realistic chocolate placebo. [url]
If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.
Filed Under: causation, chocolate, chocolate placebo, correlation, emulsion, nobel prizes
Comments on “DailyDirt: The Unquestioned Benefits Of Chocolate”
With two screaming under-two’s, I would kill any *AA member for a boat load of chocolate. Or even one bite.
I’m only half joking.
blah.. blah.. blah.. Nobody cares, at all..
Fat vs sugar
> Chocolate can be made even healthier by replacing
> its fat content with fruit juice.
When will this nonsense die? Fat doesn’t make you fat. It was removing fat and replacing it with sugar in the 70s that caused the obesity epidemic.
Re: Fat vs sugar
Cocoa beans are loaded with things that are good for you included saturated and monounsaturated fats. What’s bad for you is all the sugar (carbs) they add to cover its bitter taste. You should only eat chocolate that’s 70% or higher cocoa.
“Chocolate can be made even healthier by replacing its fat content with … a Pickering emulsion of fruit juices and milk”
Not for those of us who are allergic to milk. 🙁
chocolate and slavery
Although I love dark chocolate and think there may be a health benefit, I have recently stopped buying chocolate that isn’t certified as Free Trade, since the African chocolate industry still has a substantial problem with both slavery of children and harmful child labor practices.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_in_cocoa_production
Re: chocolate and slavery
Which will somehow be blamed on the white man.
Thin people eat more choc than fatties.
OK, so if rich people eat more caviare than poor people, eating more caviare could make me become a rich person! I love this logic.
I haven’t had my breakfast yet.
Now I am eating chocolate.
DAMN YOU MICHAEL HO !
(and your food related Saturday articles)
(you can pay for my soon to acquire diabetes ; )
Cripes Techdirt do you even read this stuff before you link it? The first link specifically says that this was a study designed to demonstrate the *fallibility* of common statistical methods in science. The conclusion that more chocoloate equals more Nobel prizes was intended to so absurd as to demonstrate to the flaws in the methodology. And here you are publishing it as fact and unwittingly proving the scientist’s point. LOL!
Re: Re:
Laroquod,
“This study brought to you by the Correlation Is Not Causation Foundation.” — That sentence was my way of saying this study was specifically designed to demonstrate that statistics are misinterpreted….
You can try to find correlations between almost any two variables, but it doesn’t mean there’s any kind of causation relationship between them…. and there’s definitely no causation relationship between chocolate consumption and winning a Nobel prize.
This is one of my favorite XKCD cartoons:
http://xkcd.com/552/
Re: Re: Re:
Yes, but the lack of correlation means the lack of causation. That is why correlation is an important first step. Sadly, for many, it’s the only step. ☹
Re: Re: Re:
You made an oblique reference to the actual point of the study, but you still trumpeted its conclusions, when the whole point of the study was for you NOT to trumpet its conclusions. The point of the study was to produce such an ABSURD result that it would be impossible for the media to trumpet that conclusion. The scientist who did the study expected it to be so ridiculous that chocolate produces Nobel winners, that it would clearly spark a discussion about correlation and causation. But you (and the source article) instead portrayed the conclusion as non-absurd, and relegated the correlation lesson to a footnote.
I hope that you can see how completely backwards and wrong it is, what you have done here.
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In fact, you have unwittingly proven the scientist’s point.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
The title of this post *is* the /unquestioned/ benefits of chocolate.
Sorry for trying to be too clever in this post.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Is it because of my comments in this thread that my posts suddenly have to be moderated before they are posted? That seems pretty unfair. I don’t ever post anything abusive or offensive.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
Never mind — just heard about the moderation bug. Anyway thanks for your responses.