Dr. Keith Scott-Mumby:

Hi, chocolate lovers. I am the doctor in the Doctor’s Chocolate. I’ve been an internationally recognized expert for nearly 30 years in the field of alternative medicine, especially diet and nutrition. I’d like to talk to you about the Doctor’s Chocolate and why it is so special and why it is really a fine and tasty functional food and not just an expensive candy or gimmick. I’m sure you are aware that there are a lot of products out there cashing in on the recent boom in scientific studies surrounding chocolate. But you may not be aware of the real science and why almost all of these other products are just a fraud and do not have, cannot have the health qualities that are being claimed. In any case, we’re not just chocolate. We’re a nutriseutical of the highest caliber, as we shall see.

First, I’m going to transform your understanding of chocolate and maybe shatter all your myths and misconceptions that it’s naughty, fattening and bad for your health. Nothing, in fact, could be further from the truth. Chocolate is a very remarkable substance and enormously beneficial health properties. Now, when I say chocolate can be good for you, it’s important to understand I’m not talking about Hershey bars or other chocolate you buy at the supermarket, but natural chocolate kept unrefined and unaltered. That’s what the science is all about and is the number one reason why you have the only really healthy chocolate product in your catalogue and the rest are mainly fakes.

To help you understand why this is so, I’m going to tell you a little bit about the chocolate manufacturing process. Chocolate, if you didn’t know, is made from the beans of cacao tree, Theobroma Cacao. Mind the spelling, it’s cacao, c-a-c-a-o and not cocoa. Theobroma, by the way, means ‘food of the gods’. We all know why, don’t we? This tree is very particular about warmth and only grows in or near the tropics. After harvesting, the pods are opened, the beans are hulled, then fermented and roasted to bring out the unique flavor. At this stage, they’re called nibs. When these are ground up, the result is a thick, brown sludge we call cacao liqueur and it tastes very bitter. This liqueur contains 55 percent fats or what is called cocoa butter. Of course, that’s just a romantic name. It isn’t butter. It contains oleic acids, steoric acids and palmitic acids which together make up 95 percent of the fats. If you didn’t know, these are common ingredients in soap. From cacao liqueur, the processing goes in two main directions. Some of it has the butter squeezed out and just turned into a fine powder, like dust called cocoa. This has most of the flavor properties of chocolate, as you know. All the liqueur can be processed directly into chocolate bars. For this, it needs to have sugar added. It’s important to understand that natural chocolate, which is what we have after grinding the nibs, is totally and edible without some kind of sweetener.

Originally, going back a couple of centuries, chocolate was served as a sweetened drink in fashionable houses. At one time, there were over 2,000 chocolate cafes in London alone, rather like the Starbucks of today, perhaps. Except that it was very expensive and only the rich elite and trendy society in the 17th and 18th century could afford the luxury of a chocolate drink.

But sometime during the 19th century, the first solid chocolate bar was created. Nobody’s exactly sure by who, but it seems very probable Fry and Sons of England were the first.

Okay. Let’s go back to the processing. Chocolate spends a lot of its early days as a liquid. Therefore, the flow viscosity and particle size play an important part in determining its final properties. I’m sure you know there are some very good chocolates that are silky smooth. Belgian chocolate is famous. Swiss could be even better. But some chocolate can be so rough, it’s only fit for use in cooking. Changing the fat content is what has the most impact on its viscosity. This is very critical. For example, increasing the fat content from 27 percent to just 28 percent can harve its viscosity. In other words, it flows twice as easily. Another important element of processing is what we call alkalinization which makes it less bitter. In the early 19th century, the Dutch manufacturer Conrad Von Houghton discovered that the acid taste of cocoa was neutralized if he added alkali potash to the nibs before they were roasted. So now we call this process dutching. Every since then, most, but not all, industrial chocolate makers have practiced this dutching alkali process to modify the flavor and color of the final product.

Unfortunately, doing so ruins all the health properties of chocolate which have been studied by scientists. From here on, if the chocolate’s been treated with alkali, it is nothing more than junk food and worthless. Needless to say, the product we chose for the Doctor’s Chocolate is all natural and has not been dutched. There have been no compromises with the Doctor’s Chocolate.

The most important influence on the flavor of chocolate is the species of bean, how it’s grown and where it’s grown. It’s a bit like wine. The region, the soil and the climate defines most of the flavor and the roasting process, of course, affects the flavor. In addition, the manufacturer may deliberately add a flavor, most notably, vanilla. As I said, some kind of sweetener is necessary. And this is where the problem begins. Sugar, of course, adds to the glycemic index and makes the final product unhealthy. It can cause problems with weight control, blood sugar and ultimately, perhaps, diabetes. This is where chocolate got its bad name. But it’s possible to use a non-sugar sweetener. We spent years and a lot in research to bring out a chocolate sweetened by Xylotol. This is a sugar alcohol and recognized by the FDA as very safe. It’s totally safe for diabetics.

We found some nice testimonials from people who took the trouble to test, using their glucometers, and then written to us delighted that it had no effect whatever on sugar control. By the way, although it’s an alcohol, it won’t make you inebriated either.

Let me point out that there are one or two products cashing in on the chocolate boom that have bad or even dangerous sugar substitutes. One uses sucralose which has no credible safety record. It was developed as a pesticide by the addition of chlorine to sugar. The sweet taste was discovered by accident when a lab technician with faulty English was told to test it and thought it was in order to taste it. I wouldn’t let sucralose anywhere near my body. Another synthetic sweetener is aspartame. We’ve rejected anything chemical or tricky. I only allowed natural food stuffs without additives, preservatives, coloring and so on.

Now, let me move on to the fat content. I’ve told you that all chocolate is rich in cocoa butter. You can eat this quite safely. All you have to do is close your ears to the foolish and ignorant propaganda that says all fats are bad. Of course, we know that the main problem with fats are trans fats. Again, these are plentiful in other chocolates and that makes them very unhealthy indeed. We have zero trans fats and very low total fat.

You see, you need to know these details in case you meet criticism. We’ve thought of everything and worked hard to bring to you the most delicious chocolate ever with the finest pure products and without any or very very little, just traces of things that I don’t think are good for you. Right.

Now, there are some groovy, healthy things in chocolate. Let’s look quickly at each of these. Remember the wonderful health benefits of chocolate you may have been hearing about is only half our story. We have one other magical ingredient that turns it from a superb candy into a unique and brilliant functional food that lowers stress and releases tension proven scientifically to do so. I’ll come to this shortly.

First, good chocolate contains certain healthful minerals. Not a lot, but enough to comment on them. They are magnesium, calcium, potassium and iron. All are essential to good health and yet magnesium deficiency is quite common. And that’s from official figures, government figures. Magnesium is needed in over 300 enzyme pathways that make our bodies work and keep us safe from chemical pollution by detoxifying poisons.

In addition, there are a number of bio-active compounds which are mentioned separately, but taken together, they promote alertness, induce calm, lessen pain and promote well being. Substances like this include caffeine. Yes, there’s caffeine in chocolate, but actually less than in a cup of decaffeinated coffee. The important caffeine-like ingredient which relaxes and enhances alertness without overstimulation is theobromine. That’s obviously from its name, the theobroma tree. Theobromine is also one of the main ingredients in tea and the British could tell you a thing or two about the soothing properties of a cup of tea. This might have given rise to the rather tranquil English country gentlefolk mentality indeed.

There’s also tiramine (ph) in there. This could potentially be a problem for someone taking monoameenoxidase inhibitors. And a compound called PEA, phenylethyamine. This is a neurotransmitter type substance that’s known to elevate mood and make you feel cheerful even on a rainy day. So chocolate can refresh you but be careful. The caffeine and the tiramine could cause headaches. We don’t want that, do we? Triptophan is also present in chocolate. It’s a precursor to seratonin. That too elevates mood. Prozac and its herb competitor St. Johns Wart are both intended to raise seratonin levels in the brain. That’s certainly one of the reasons why eating chocolate feels great. Just make sure that it’s natural chocolate like ours and there are no negatives to go with it. I’ve been hearing lots of stories from people who find the Doctor’s Chocolate relieves depression and I’m not at all surprised. Of course, it’s just a side effect. Hey, we can’t help that. You’ll just have to get used to smiling more and don’t complain about it. Interestingly too, there’s a substance called Annandimide in chocolate. That’s a cannabis like compound. Cannabis, marijuana. And that will certainly also promote relaxation.

Last but not least, chocolate contains compounds called Exorphins and will trigger similar natural compounds in the body that we call endorphins. This orphins are named for being like morphine. These are nature’s own pain killers and endorphins promote a high, a bit like morphine but safe. Anyone who works out at the gym and gets an endorphin rush will testify to how good they make you feel. In the very stressed world we live in, this makes chocolate a gift indeed. There are so many healing and helpful substances in it, it really is ‘food of the gods’.

What I’m sharing with you here is a lot of recent science. There’s been a flood of scientific papers on chocolate and its health properties. It started with an interest in the health of the people from the island from Kuna in Panama. They have lower blood pressure, less heart disease and fewer strokes than everyone else. In fact, the death rate from heart disease in these islands is less than eight percent in Kuna mainlanders and cancer incredibly kills only 16 percent as many islanders as folks on the mainland. Scientists wanted to know why they were so healthy. It soon became of use that the reason was that the islanders drank four to five cups of chocolate every day, natural healthy chocolate, freshly ground, the kind I’ve insisted that we use. It was not a genetic factor because islanders who moved away and stopped drinking the healthy chocolate soon became unhealthy like the rest of us. They began to get normal rates of heart disease and cancer. So scientists began to ask what is in chocolate that has such great health benefits? The answer is that it’s loaded with antioxidants, substances we call Flavinols. There are many subdivisions of this class of substances and they are found in many plants. So far, scientists have found more than 4,000 Flavanoids in plants. The Theobroma Cacao tree just happens to be one of the richest sources of these natural antioxidants.

Now, antioxidants, remember, mop up free radicals, the killer compounds which get on the loose in our bodies and damage cell membranes, damage the heart and attack DNA, making heart attacks and cancer far more likely. Free radicals attack our cell metabolism right at the core of things and are the very cause of aging. It’s quite an irony that oxygen which is essential for life is actually slowly killing us. Aging or oxidation is much the same process as the rusting of iron. The answer is to have as much antioxidant substances in our bodies as possible. The more antioxidants you swallow, the longer you’ll live. It’s as simple as that.

Now, I don’t want to be technical, but let’s just list a few of the antioxidants that are found in plants and vegetables. There are lignings which are found in nuts and whole grains and Thesyanines and prosinadins. These are dark blue black coloration, the kind of thing you find in dark berries like blackberries, blueberries and red grapes and these are very intense antioxidants. There are Isoflavones from the soybean. You may have heard of people taking soy isoflavones as a health supplement but they are flavanoids.

There are catichines which occur in tea and grapes and therefore, occur in wine. Tanins, which I think everybody’s heard of, these occur in tea, but also in nuts and also in red wine, but technically, they’re flavanoids. Corcitin is a compound that’s found in grape and onions and so on. There are many of these. This is just a glimpse of a very complex emerging science. Basically, it’s to tell you why you should eat a lot of natural substances, fruit and vegetables especially and why you will live a lot longer if you do. Cooking denatures it somewhat, by the way, so eat at least some of your food raw.

Now, I’m sure you’d like to know that a small bar of chocolate can contain as many flavanoids as six apples, as four and a half cups of tea or two glasses of red wine. So chocolate is a very good competitor in this antioxidant market. Obviously, the exact amounts vary according to the origins of the cocoa and the processing it has been subjected to. I mentioned the roasting and the dutching or alkali process. That effectively kills about 95 percent of the antioxidants and regular chocolate bars are not good for your health in any way whatever. The traditional chocolate manufacturers have been trying to get in on the act and fudge the issue, but instead of switching to making good healthy chocolate, they continue making the same old junk and pay for fake science that implies their product is rich in antioxidants when they’re not. You can eat my Doctor’s Chocolate in complete confidence that you’re having all the health benefits of real, natural, relatively unprocessed chocolate. It’s enrobed in Barry Callibo (ph) silky swiss chocolate. The Callibo team, by the way, I admire for their consistent scientific research. One must always be a little skeptical of research paid for by commerce, so to avoid this obvious criticism, the Barry Callibo Company commissioned an independent study from Insido-Tox a research laboratory. Their investigation studied the effect of chocolate polyphenols on the growth of human local prostate cancer cells and on metastatic cells. Metastatic cells are the ones that spread throughout your body. Those are the dangerous ones that kill. As a comparison, they tested the efficacy of another substance called Beetasitasterol (ph) which is known for its ability to inhibit cancer cells. And the results showed the polyphenols from cocoa beans inhibit in vitro growth of cancer cells. In vitro, by the way, means in a test tube. It’s from the word vitrio or vitrious, the same word as glass. And in vitro, these cancer cells stop growing altogether. The effect was observed to a lesser degree with a metastatic cells. In comparison with Beetasistasterol, polyphenols demonstrated a more convincing effect in stemming cell growth. They required less time for the same effect. In other words, chocolate has a great anti-cancer property that beats an already recognized compound. Now, obviously, we can’t make claims like beating cancer, but I do want you to realize just how valuable and healthy the ingredients of natural chocolate can be.

Incidently, the researchers were also able to demonstrate that cocoa polyphenols had no negative impact on normal healthy cells and that’s just as important.

Now, remember, we don’t have to join in this debate about chocolate. Our main active ingredient is not the chocolate in polyflavinols. It’s a wonderful relaxant that calms and de-stresses people safely. I’ll be coming to that later. But if we did enter the chocolate debate, then we’d win hands down anyway. I’ve insisted on the finest chocolate preparation that can be made with the present technology and science. As I said, there are no compromises with the doctor’s chocolate.

Now, while I’m talking about the scientific research behind chocolates, delightful health properties, perhaps this would be a good moment to quote definitive research from the agricultural research service in the US. They measured the total antioxidant capacity or TAC, as they call it, and prosynadine (ph) levels, that’s one of the antioxidants I mentioned. They studied natural, unsweetened cocoa powder, dutch processed chocolate, unsweetened baking chocolate, semi-sweet chocolate, dark chocolate and milk chocolate.

What they found was interesting, if rather predictable. But at least they laid it out for us. The natural cocoa powder contained the highest levels of TAC and prosynadines. Milk chocolate contained the least amount. Baking chocolate didn’t do so well either because it contains more fat, 50 or 60 percent fat. After alkalinization, chocolate’s less acid and therefore, less bitter, but there is a cost. This research showed the marked reduction in prosynadine content.

So what we learned from this study is that the more cocoa powder solids in the chocolate, the more antioxidants and the more total antioxidant capacity. It really comes down to color. The darker the chocolate, the better. Please take a look at ours and you will see a very dark chocolate. We have about 70 percent chocolate solids, which is way above average.

Well, how important is all this? I mean, does it really matter? Who cares? Well, let me tell you it’s very important. A study published in the British Medical Journal, that’s one of the world’s leading medical journals, in December 1998, showed that there was a direct relationship between chocolate consumption and a longer life. Now, I constantly emphasize that you need to discriminate between healthy chocolate and unhealthy chocolate. This study didn’t even do that. The more chocolate you consume even junk sticky bars, the longer you’re likely to live.

I’m sure that’s the exact opposite of what you’ve been told. You probably thought that chocolate bars make you fat, you get diabetes and you die young. So don’t feel guilty eating my chocolates. Tell your friends you’re going to outlive them unless they too get the Doctor’s Chocolate.

Now, the science hasn’t just stopped with antioxidants. There are a lot more good things about chocolate that keep us healthy and keep our hearts beating longer. Chocolate flavanoids, it’s been found, help to relax blood vessels and so lower blood pressure. They also reduce blood platelets, stickiness which helps to prevent clotting. That’s one of the major reasons for heart attacks and strokes. One study showed that a 25 gram bar of good dark chocolate had as much blood thinning effect as 80 milligrams of aspirin used for the same purpose.

Another study showed that chocolate helps the body to process nitric oxide. What does that mean? Well, nitric oxide is what we need to keep our blood vessels open and functioning. We now know that that’s the chief mechanism by which we relax our blood vessels and so lower blood pressure. There’s an aside to this, by the way, Viagra works by exactly the same mechanism. An erection, I’m sure you know, depends on blood flow and Viagra blocks the breakdown of nitric oxide. In other words, the nitric oxide accumulates, causes the blood vessels to dilate and helps to make a better erection and a more long lasting erection.

Another study showed that chocolate flavanoids were able to alter blood fats or lipids favorably, lowering the dangerous LDL cholesterol and increasing the protective HDL cholesterol. No one knowledgeable about nutrition and metabolism worries about cholesterol anymore. We need cholesterol. What is dangerous about blood fats like LDL, cholesterol and triglycerides, is that they become oxidized or rancid. These are toxic compounds which become deposited in our arteries and create placts of etheroma.

That’s what leads to heart attacks and death. Without the oxidation process, fats do not damage our blood vessels. So once again, we come back to the fact that high levels of natural antioxidants in chocolate protect us from harm. No wonder those Kuna Islanders live so long.

Well, which would you rather do to look after your heart? Eat a plate of broccoli and take an aspirin every day with the attendant risk of stomach bleeding or eat chocolate. It’s what you Americans I think call a “No Brainer.”

Wow. The science is really, really turning things around, isn’t it, with how we view chocolate. I find all of this rather exciting. However, it does all come back to the type of the chocolate. White chocolate, of course, can’t claim any of the benefits due to the flavanoids in dark chocolate. You need about 60 percent chocolate solids. Our has nearer 70 percent. But Hersheys and the typical supermarket chocolates, usually less than 20 percent, sometimes less than ten percent. It’s interesting, though, that responsible chocolate manufacturers are beginning to wake up to the power antioxidant properties of real chocolate and try to minimize the losses during processing. Barry Callibo from Switzerland, I’m satisfied, are leaders in this respect and really care what product the customer ends up eating.

Obviously, there are still the party poopers who live in yesterday’s world and have not kept up with the science of today. There’s a sort of puritanical streak in this. It tastes good, so it must be bad for you. Instead of looking at the science, they still quote what mommy used to tell them, how bad chocolate is. What a shame. If only mommy hadn’t been so ignorant of the facts, she could’ve treated her kids, and also eaten chocolate herself. With the appetite suppressant qualities of our chocolate, she needed have gotten fat either and so didn’t need to fear this awesome food from the gods. It’s true, you can get most of the same benefits from three to six servings of fruits and vegetables a day, but chocolate, let’s face it, is tastier, it’s quicker and less hassle.

Now, since I’ve been talking about fats and cholesterol, let me tell you. Don’t be shaken by stories about saturated fats. Intelligent health workers and nutritionists – and remember, I’m a professor of nutrition – no longer believe that saturated fat is a danger. It’s polyunsaturates which block the absorption of essential fatty acids and especially trans fats that cause the damage. Consider the following information: in centuries past, our folks lived mainly in rural areas and act food from the farms, lashings of milk, butter, cream, cheese and fats. Yet heart attacks as we know them today, myocardial infarction or coronary as the layman calls it, just never happened. It wasn’t until the 20th century that this disease emerged. That was shortly after the introduction of margarine into our diets, around 1905 to 1910. Since then, heart attacks have increased steadily in frequency, until by the end of the 20th century, this was the number one killer disease. The reason is plain to see, for those not fogged in anti-fats dogma, and that’s that natural animal fats were fine, but manufactured fats are dangerous.

Thick of the eskimos. They ate a diet rich in animal fats, whale blubber, sea oil and meat, polar bear livers, that are so fatty, they cut like lard. Yet, they did not have arteriosclerosis because the fats they ate were healthy. Only when they left behind their stone age life, did they become obese and unhealthy, living on modern manufactured foods. So forget fats. They’re not the problem.

In any case, don’t forget the British Medical Journal article, which said that ignoring all other factors, that just the regular consumption of chocolate, any kind of chocolate, meant that you’re likely to live longer. It really is ‘food from the gods’.

Now, ladies, I know you’d love to hear that chocolate is good for the skin. It helps protect against skin cancer and will also prevent the signs of aging in the skin. The journal of nutrition in June of 2006 reported a German study which involved 24 women who added hot cocoa to their breakfasts daily for about three months. Half received cocoa that contained over 300 milligrams of flavinols, while the others received a placebo cocoa that only contained 27 milligrams of flavinols per serving. In other words, one tenth of the amount. Those with the high flavinol content, had 25 percent less skin reddening after ultraviolet light exposure. This was at the end of a three-month experiment. These ladies also had a doubling of blood flow to the skin compared to the controls and a 37 percent thickening of the tissues. In this case, thick skin is not the problem. Since the main aging effect in skin which leads to its wrinkling is that it goes thinner and loses collagen. This is the main sign of aging in the skin. In fact, it’s the main sign of aging period. So the fact that chocolate can help slow that process is really good news. And again, it probably, totally the opposite of what you thought. There’s more still.

Chocolate is also good for the brain. It increases blood flow and that’s great. Ian MacDonald of Britain’s University of Nottingham Medical School, conducted a small brain imagining study on young healthy women to see whether flavanoid rich cocoa could help boast cognitive function while they were challenged by mental tasks. Well, in fact, it didn’t show any measurable improvement in the cognitive function performance on the test. But it did, the imagining did clearly show, increased blood flow to their brains for a two or three hour period. Now, I’m not sure really how much cognitive function they expected to see in just a few hours. I’d rather have seen the study done differently where it was followed over the space of a few days or maybe even weeks. But the increase in blood flow was quite clear. And as the researchers said, this means that it could benefit older adults, those with cognitive impairment, such as early Alzheimer’s, or conditions such as fatigue or even mini strokes. So this is quite logical.

Another US study of healthy adults took over 50 subjects and found in them a marked rise in blood flow to the brain also. This study was conducted at Harvard Medical School by the researcher Norman Hollandberg. He was one of the scientists who first studied the effect of cocoa flavanoids on the Panama’s Kuna Island people. This increase in blood flow to the brain fits with what I was telling you about relaxing blood vessels and improving blood viscosity. Well, maybe that’s enough about the ‘food of the gods’. But that’s only the half of it. As I said, this product isn’t called the Doctor’s Chocolate for nothing. It isn’t just a candy that we’re talking about here. It’s a dream of a health product. But before we go on to study the megastar ingredient, L-Theanine, let me just dismiss a couple of minor ingredients.

I mention that we use Zylitol as a sweetener. This substance is classified as generally recognized as safe by the FDA. Zylitol, as I said, is technically a sugar alcohol. That means it’s not sugar, making it perfect for dieters, diabetics, children, dental patients, moms to be and women at high risk of osteoporosis, as well as anyone concerned about oral health and general well being. In fact, I bet you could sell a dozen bags a week just as a diabetic safe, sugar free candy. Because Zylitol releases its energy much more slowly than any other sugar or sweetener, people who eat it in the place of sugar feel fuller for longer and are less likely to snack. That’s one of the main ingredients that makes our Doctor’s Chocolate an appetite suppressant. It could easily be included in any weight loss program, just another unfortunate side effect, I’m afraid. Well, we can’t help that, but if only prescription meds had similar good side effects, wouldn’t it be great?

Zylitol contains 40 percent fewer calories than conventional sugar. Studies show that it increases bone density. This, I’m sure, is mainly by taking you off sugar, which is one of the main causes of osteoporosis. Sugar takes phosphate out of the bones. Bones are mainly calcium phosphate. That means that calcium is pulled out of the bones too. Just one of the dozens of reasons why sugar is bad for you. In fact, we’ve been seeing an increasing number of young people, even girls in their 20's with measurable osteoporosis. There’s little doubt in this scenario that sugar in soda drinks is the main culprit in this disastrous trend. Zylitol does not have the same negative health impact. And, by the way, let me put you on your guard against sweeteners used in some of these so-called healthy chocolates cashing in on the boom. One of them I said uses sucralose, which is not just unhealthy, but it’s downright dangerous. Others use aspartame, which I wouldn’t feed to a dog. In fact, I use it as an insecticide. It’s great for killing ants, which become overstimulated and die. I’m satisfied that Zylitol is the right choice for all health purposes. It’s easily metabolized and does not leave any toxic residues in our bodies.

Finally, almost as an aside, there’s the raspberry in the truffle. Bright red raspberries are rich in more antioxidant flavanoids in their own right. Just adding to the complete picture. Nothing in this product is just for padding, folks.

Right. You’ve heard the music and met all the supporting actors and actresses. Now, we come to the real superstar of the show. What really makes the Doctor’s Chocolate, the doctor’s dream. It’s L-Theanine. With or without the great taste and health properties of a chocolate raspberry truffle, if you just swallow L-Theanine, you’ll chill out and feel yourself in a good place. It’s scientifically proven as a stress buster. My idea was just to combine delicious silky super chocolate with this simple natural health compound to make what I believe is one of the healthiest food products available anywhere on the planet. It wasn’t easy technically. The reason candy manufacturers use the junk they do is because it works okay. It’s easy to make chocolate that way. It’s just lousy food. In fact, chemical junk. Anyway, our chocolate making buffins (?) have worked on the case and we have a result, as you can see. We don’t need the sugar. The Zylitol takes care of that. There’s just a teeny taste of dextrose sweetener in the chocolate enrobing. Such a tiny amount that it doesn’t register biologically speaking. There’s virtually no fat and each piece comes in at just 20 calories. It’s recommended to take two pieces a day. You can have more if you want, but you’ll get sufficient dose of L-Theanine at two pieces a day, that means 40 calories a day. That’s pretty remarkable. If you choose it instead of bread or pasta, you’re saving hundreds of calories. If you choose my chocolate instead of an apple or a banana, you’re still saving calories. I wanted a chocolate which women could eat safely and without the guilt or the need to tell lies and hide what you’re doing. My wife, Vivian, loves chocolate and this is for her as much as for everybody else.

You’ve heard of comfort eating. It’s just that. Soothing and comforting. But the good effects are completely cancelled out if you feel guilty about doing it. Most comfort foods, as you know, are too sugary, too fatty, or too refined. If you eat such foods, it triggers the addiction for more sweets and unhealthy foods, more sugar, more carbohydrate, and continued weight problems. In other words, junk. Trust me, Women, you can eat this chocolate without feeling guilty and without triggering the cravings for sweet foods. It’s a pleasure milestone. Let’s look at some more science. There’s science coming out of our ears for this product. We bow down to nobody. It’s not an expensive candy. It’s a hundred percent healthful and functional food. Don’t let the fact that it tastes fabulous distract you, that’s all.

L-Theanine, the main nutriceutical ingredient is an amino acid which is found in green tea. It gives tea its characteristic umami or fifth taste, that’s a Japanese word, that’s besides the four traditional tastes: sweet, salty, acid and bitter. Attempts to isolate L-Theanine from tea leaves was once difficult and expensive and actually pretty inefficient. Economically feasible methods of producing the L-Theanine now exist and it does not require a mountain of tea leaves. However, I must warn you that almost all L-Theanine on the market is worthless because it’s a mixed of L-Theanine and D-Theanine which has none of the super health properties I’m going to describe.

Needless to say, ours is the best L-Theanine that you can buy. Some Theanine, a Japanese product, it’s very expensive and is the main reason your Doctor’s Chocolate is a premium priced item. Incidentally, all the worthwhile research on L-Theanine has come out of Japan.

Its full name is Gamma EthyAmino L-Glutamic Acid. Well, let’s just stick with the L-Theanine, shall we?

Everyone these days has heard how healthy green tea is. L-Theanine is calming and relaxing. So much so, it counters the caffeine in the green tea, resulting in a drink which the monks of the orient use to relax and slip into meditative states. Research on human volunteers has demonstrated that L-Theanine creates a sense of relaxation approximately 30 to 40 minutes after ingestion for at least two different mechanisms. First, this amino acid directly stimulates the production of alpha brain waves, creating a deep state of relaxation and mental alertness similar to what is achieved through meditation. Second, L-Theanine is involved in the formation of the inhibitor, a neuro-transmitter gamma amino buteric acid, GABA or Gaba. Gabe influences the level of two other neuro-transmitters, dopamine and serotonin, which I’m sure you’ve heard of, and these produce the key relaxation effect. L-Theanine has been shown to benefit hypertension and this is part of its stress release and relaxant properties, I’m sure. Studies on spontaneously hypertensive rest showed an impressive blood pressure lowering effect with L-Theanine. The lowering effect was dose dependent, meaning the more L-Theanine the more significant the drop in blood pressure. L-Glutamine was used as one of the controls, although L-Glutamine is very similar chemically to L-Theanine, it in fact, did not exhibit any hypertensive properties. Stress is one of the main problems that we face today. It overworks our immune system, plays havoc with our hormones. Almost all diseases have stress as their root cause, whatever the pathological mechanism. Not only that, but stress wrecks lives and wrecks relationships and ultimately, shortens life by a measurable and drastic degree. It causes bad emotions and feeling of being depressed. In 1998, pharmaceutical sales of anti-anxiety drugs totaled over seven hundred million dollars while sales of anti-depressants totaled close to five billion dollars. The cost of some prescriptions is just staggering. At CVS Pharmacy, the cost of generic Prozac is marked up at least 56 times what the drug costs wholesale. In fact, it’s a 5,594 percent mark up. This expense is all so unnecessary. People under stress can mitigate many of the harmful effects of stress without L-Theanine without becoming sedated in the process. L-Theanine doesn’t make one drowsy nor does it promote sleep because this amino acid does not produce the fata waves in the brain. Fata waves are the frequency of trance and dreaming states, unconsciousness and deep sleep, those are delta waves. By the way, a useful note here, if you are already deeply relaxed, L-Theanine would not take you further down. But then, nobody I meet is deeply relaxed. How about you?

So now we have a stress-relieving chocolate. Can you imagine anything more wonderful? It’s a scientific first.

To finish off, let me give you two more benefits that have been scientifically proven by double blind placebo controlled trials, proper scientific trials, in other words. L-Theanine reduces PMS, pre-menstrual syndrome or PMT, as the British call, pre-menstrual tension.

That’s good news for everyone. You may have heard me joke that a lot of men suffer from PMS. Think about it. And there’s even a study to show that L-Theanine because it brings calm, relaxation and focus actually improves golf scores. You can apply this principle sideways to use it for calming and focus in any sphere of human endeavor, wherever calm and focus is required, not just in sports.

Contrast this to coffee, which just about the whole nation is hooked on. I see people walking around with 16 and 20-ounce cups of coffee and they keep getting them topped up. Think of all the caffeine in these drinks and the way it keeps people wired, tense, jittery and aggressive, anything but calm and focused, that’s for sure. Agitation is the last thin you need in the US with your liberal gun laws. People get shot I’m sure because of caffeine delirium. We could change the state of the whole nation by getting everyone off this toxic drink and onto delicious soothing chocolate. And, remember, the cost per day of the Doctor’s Chocolate is much less than the cost of just one Latte at Starbucks. And it doesn’t have the creme and calories. So which is better value? Which one is going to stress you up and which one is going to calm you down?

Another “no brainer” as you Americans would say. L-Theanine is extremely safe. There are no dietary limits on L-Theanine intake by the Japan Food Addictive Association and the FDA accepts it as a safe food ingredient.

The intended use of L-Theanine is that of a mental and physical relaxant that does not induce drowsiness. Based on the results of the clinical studies, L-Theanine is most effective at the dose of 200 milligrams a day, with the effect being felt within 30 minutes and lasting for eight to ten hours. So that daily dose is achieved with two pieces of the Doctor’s Chocolate. However, we’ve been so generous with this that we put not just 100 milligrams, but a hundred and twenty-five milligrams in each piece, that’s 250 milligrams a day, 25 percent extra value for no extra cost. It’s part of the formula of giving you more than we promised rather than less.

Individuals with high stress levels may increase their dosage quite safely. The FDA recommends a maximum dose of 1200 milligrams daily, although the reason for this limit isn’t clear due to a demonstrated safety record. In fact, there are no known adverse reactions to L-Theanine and no drug interactions have been reported.

L-Theanine is not affected by food and may be taken at any time as needed. So there you have it, Folks. By any name, this product is a miracle of science and food technology. It’s the real deal and cutting edge. Beware of imitations, as they say. Don’t let any of your potential customers mistake this product for the tons of Me Too junk that’s out there. What’s the point of buying half price phoney chocolate items that don’t have any of the real health benefits being boasted? The Doctor’s Chocolate is a complete break through product. It’s tasty, innovative and even good to look at. It will calm and soothe and has changed the way many people feel about life. It cheers up those who felt that maybe life is too miserable to enjoy.

Only today, I heard another wonderful story of its many benefits. The CEO of the company was traveling on a plane, and there was a very fractious wailing child on board, a young girl 18 months old. The distraught parent said the little girl was often in this inconsolable mood. So a bag of the Doctor’s Chocolate was produced and given as a gift. The child calmed down at once and slept happily. In subsequent days, the now relieved parents reported that the little girl is totally different and stays calm and enjoys her chocolate which, as you know, does her no harm, unlike all the other kids’ candies. It won’t even harm her teeth. You can recommend the Doctor’s Chocolate with confidence and back it up with torrents of solid cutting edge science.

But still, according to my wife, the best thing about it is the taste. I’m happy she’s happy. When she’s happy, I’m happy. This chocolate is really my gift to women everywhere because women have a very special relationship to chocolate. Guys don’t seem to understand that. I want the whole world to enjoy the Doctor’s Chocolate. It’s a miracle food, truly a gift from the gods.