How Much Caffeine is in Chocolate?
OK, every now and then the question comes up about caffeine and the word of wisdom. Then the inevitable discussion (which has raged on several blogs already) is about chocolate and caffeine. My business partner just put up what will hopefully be the definitive article on the subject. Since at least one LDS blogger gave me a placard which reads, “Not against the word of wisdom…yet” I figured I’d put a link for everyone to discuss.
Part of this comes in response to an amazingly erroneous article about caffeine and chocolate that was linked to by Digg. (Which just goes to show you shouldn’t always trust what you read at Digg) I figured a lot of people have been discussing this. So feel free to ask an actual chocolate maker any questions you may have on the subject.
What do you know, white chocolate has no caffeine. My love for white chocolate must stem from my natural righteousness.
Huh. My wife just posted on caffeine at her blog, from the perspective of a food scientist and flavorist.
http://balancefood.blogspot.com/2007/09/what-am-i-sensing.html
Chocolate does not have caffeine, it has Theobromine.
http://www.xocoatl.org/caffeine.htm
addrax, alas, you perpetuate a great Mormon myth. While chocolate has a bunch of theobromine (another stimulant) it also has plenty of caffeine (the numbers in Clark’s post are accurate).
Ben, thanks for the link. I am glad to see your wifes blog.
99% of the chocolate I see consumed is milk chocolate.
I wonder if trace means, effectively like it’s not even there?
Would it be like me perpetuating the “Great Backyard Gold Myth?” “Hey you, is there gold in your backyard?”
Correct answers:
- “No, you cannot find gold in my backyard.”
- “yes, trace amounts of gold can be found in the dirt in my backyard.”
The amount of caffeine in milk chocolate is nothing compared to the amount of theobromine or as the article points out even sugar, so much so it’s not even worth mentioning the caffeine. Great Myth!
Addrax, the post in question was designed to correct quite a bit of misinformation out there. While it’s true that chocolate has theobromine it also has caffeine. How “much” it has depends upon what kind of chocolate you eat and how much. (Personally I can finish off a full dark chocolate bar - but then I also drink plenty of diet Coke)
The article I posted a link to doesn’t discuss theobromine. But we’ll probably have an article up on that soon as well.
Regarding milk chocolate. It once again depends upon the chocolate bar. If you read the article a pound of milk chocolate contains around 145mg of caffeine. But that will vary depending upon how much chocolate is actually in it. (Cheap chocolate tends to have less) A small Hershey’s bar is about 60 g or roughly .13 pounds. So it’d have around 20mg. Contrast this with a cup of coffee which has about 110mg. A 1L diet Coke (my favorite) has about 125mg. But if you manage to only drink a 12oz can then you have 45 for diet Coke. But that means a Hershey’s bar has only half as much caffeine as a small diet Coke.
So is it trace? Well, that might be an exaggeration. But if you eat a lot of chocolate (say a large bar) it’s not much different from chugging a diet Coke. If you look at the chart you’ll notice that ice tea has less caffeine than chocolate.
So the article is exaggerating?
quoting the article:
Where are you getting the “A small Hershey’s bar is about 60 g”? That’s not in the article. Also, it seems unlikely given that a pound of milk chocolate contains around 145mg of caffeine.
The answer to the question “how much caffeine is in chocolate?” is: Not nearly enough. I like chocolate much better than Coke. If I’m going to ruin my health I’d rather do it with chocolate.
By the way, studies have shown that caffeine acts as a mild stimulant and can be used to temporarily compensate for the problems associated with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (or ADHD). Many ADD folk do end up self-medicating with caffeine.
However, this comes with a BIG downside. The long term affects of caffeine on the ADHD brain are to degrade the synapses and permanently damage the brain. The result is that while caffeine provides a short-term benefit, it actually aggravates the symptoms of ADHD over the long run.
If you’ve got ADHD, you definitely should not be touching caffeinated beverages.
I appreciate the info, but you could tell me there’s no caffeine in Coke or chocolate and I’d believe it. The stimulant, in the amounts I consume it (a few Diet Dr. Pepper’s per day and maybe some chocolate now and again), has absolutely no effect on me. I can drink a Red Bull and feel no different.
By contrast, if my boss eats a chocolate bar he’s bouncing off the wall. We once tricked him by giving him 2 Excedrin instead of Tylenol. That was quite the show.
Me? Nothing. The whole caffeine/Word of Wisdom argument to me is absolutely meaningless.
Please forgive my saying so, but debating chocolate or caffeine seems to miss the point in a big, strikingly Pharisaical, way.
It’s not like the Brethren browse AskYahoo! or Wikipedia for caffeine content figures prior to advising church membership on what they should and should not take into their bodies.
In fact, to assume that the Church’s proscription of coffee and tea (and not chocolate) is about caffeine is like assuming its prohibition of extra-marital sex is about transmitting diseases.
Second-guessing the Lord’s motives is how you end up with the kinds of embellishments and interpretations that the Pharisees did to the law of Moses. Rather than speculate WHY we have certain commandments, we really are much better off following Adam’s example and simply saying, “I know not, save the Lord commanded me,” and leaving it at that.
That said, here are a couple of peripheral observations. First, it is interesting how often people who drink caffeinated soft drinks want to debate chocolate. Second, ever since I joined the church, I’ve noticed that every Latter-day Saint I have ever known who drinks caffeinated soft drinks does so to mask the effects of their other poor lifestyle decisions: they stay up too late, exercise too little, and eat without discipline.
Speaking of staying up too late, let me pull this beam out of my own eye and say … good night!
Cheers!
So I just ran down to the local Qwik-E-Mart to grab a Dove bar, since this dang post made me start craving chocolate (it’s ok, I’m working a graveyard shift and technically it’s about lunch time for me).
I’m reading the label and it turns out this chocolate is good for my heart! Something about flavanols and phytonutrients. Does your chocolate contain these magical plant compounds, Clark?
Clark, I would like to correct another inaccurate statement in your link. In it, you say almost nobody can eat an entire pound of chocolate in one sitting. Well, I find this very offensive. I know at least one person typing on the computer right now sitting in my chair in my office who has done this more than once. This person will go unnamed. But he is feeling better now.
Clark,
If you are preparing articles on other controversial ingredients like theobromine, you might want to do one on oxylates. After a bout with a kidney stone this winter, my urologist has steered me away from foods containing oxylates, chocolate being high on the list. Anything you could provide to help me rationalize this away would be greatly appreciated.
Question to no one: If I avoid foods that contain stimulants, should I, for consistency, also avoid foods that contain refined sugars? FTA chocolates can contain 48% sugar, is that a WoW reason for avoiding it?
For the record I agree with Tom (#11). I don’t think we know why what was specified in the WoW is what it is. Despite some claims, coffee and tea really aren’t that bad and have quite a few beneficial aspects to them. Drink them too hot and they are. But so is hot chocolate or postum. Sure alcohol is bad and the modern recreational drugs are as well of course. (Although even those are often exaggerated in danger) I view the WoW primarily like I view some of the food restrictions in the Law of Moses. It’s a commandment and it might not make sense but you do it out of faith.
The attempt to understand the WoW in terms purely of health benefits is ultimately counter-productive. I’m not saying being addicted to diet Coke is a good thing. (Although frankly it’s a very weak addictions as such things go and the carbonation is probably worse for you than the caffeine) Folks who try to justify the WoW in terms of health science often run into trouble when science doesn’t portray things as the evils they assume.
Addax, (#7) the size of a Hershey’s bar is on the bar itself. Or you can go to their website. The rest is all math. A pound of milk chocolate will have between 100 - 200 mg of caffeine. 145 mg is a fair estimate based upon common recipes. On what basis do you say that is incorrect? Art explained rather clearly based upon the recipes and the amount of caffeine in the beans why he feels it is 145 mg.
I agree with Clark’s #16. People who try to come up with scientific reasons for the WoW are generally going to fail. The main reason to follow the WoW is faith.
I will say this, however, from personal experience: the less caffeine I have, the better I feel. Before I joined the Church I drank coffee, and it became a game all day long trying to have enough coffee to keep me going. Cuban coffee in Miami will give you a buzz for an hour and then a huge down. You need to get shots all day long to keep on going. Same thing after my baptism with Diet Coke — I had to have four of them a day to keep awake. Every time I give up caffeine entirely, or have very small amounts (such as in, ahem, chocolate), I have more energy over the course of a day. But again, this is not as much a WoW thing for me as a “common sense good health” issue.
Any time you’re consuming 50+ fluid ounces per day of ANYTHING, and then you stop (or vice-versa) you’re going to notice it, Geoff. Example: when I drank 120 ounces of water a day I found myself constantly hungry. Moderation is a powerful principle. ^_^
Geoff, a lot of the negative effects of pop is the carbonation. It’s actually a good thing to give up - especially if you are doing athletics.
I definitely get the faith above logic approach to some facets of the Word of Wisdom, but it would be nice to get a definitive answer at some point as to exactly why certain things are specifically named in the section. It’s often a source of much controversy.
Clark- so that’s probably a “No” on the flavanols, per my #12, huh?
All chocolate has features that are quite good for you. Dark chocolate will be considerably better than milk in that regard - simply because there’s not much chocolate in milk chocolate. Plus typically you get satisfied quicker with dark chocolate.
You have to counterbalance this with the effects due to the fat content and the sugar. But there’s definitely good stuff in chocolate - although I think it is sometimes exaggerated.
I can eat a pound of dark chocolate in one setting. 70% cacao, even. Man, that’s good.
Also bad, because it means extra time in the gym to work it off. Luckily, I only indulge that desire perhaps once or twice a year, since I’m a poor graduate student with kids (that last part makes me evil in the eyes of some bloggernacleites, but I don’t care).
I do take some caffeine before I work out in the gym, mainly because I found myself falling asleep while on the treadmill (a bad thing to do on a 9 or so miles per hour run). A small amount of caffeine keeps me awake the whole time, so I can actually get my exercise done at in the morning. If I don’t take the caffeine, I won;t get the exercise done - so which is worse - taking the small amount of caffeine, or not working out?
Just for the fun of it, I decided to quit drinking carbonated beverages about two months ago (except for San Pellegrino, which I have at a restaurant a few times a year). I decided that I didn’t need all that fizzy sugar water.
I’m still middle-aged and tired at the end of the day. And I’d like a really good chocolate bar right now. But I may have to settle for a Chips Ahoy cookie.
I hate carbonated beverages, myself. I can’t understand the appeal, myself.
Except in the case of lightly carbonated, home brewed root beer (but commerical brands of root beer, even the premium ones, nope. Don’t like ‘em. Too fizzy).
Just to add, that article linked to by Addax had numerous other errors beyond the caffeine claim.
It’s actually the fizz that I’m addicted to, I think.
Question: Bringing a bottle of Coke to church is not looked at as “bad” compared to bringing Coffee right? I know some places Coke is perceived equally wrong, while in other’s is not. Coffee is rejected because of a substance not because of Caffeine. It is shown that Caffeine is bad, so wisely it would be wrongful to consume high quantities of it, but is not prohibited like Coffee right?? This stuff always comes up. I know they serve Coke at the MTC that’s about all I know so… I was just wondering about this matter too.
Clark,
Pirate O’s is out of Amano. I’m almost out as well. Don’t make me drive to Caputo’s!
Felipe, this is a very complex issue because there are some bishops who will tell you not to drink Coke and there are even some GAs who have said you shouldn’t drink Coke or other soft drinks with caffeine. I used to drink Coke and Dr. Pepper, and I felt like I was not breaking the WoW. My take is that it is NOT breaking the WoW to drink caffeinated soft drinks. Just about everybody in the Bloggernacle would agree with that position. Drinking coffee definitely is breaking the WoW. There is no really good logic or scientific reasoning for this — you just have to take it on faith.
We knew a bishop, when I was a kid, who said if they made Diet Pepsi against the WoW he would leave the church. I’m almost 50% certain he was kidding.
There are definitely Mormons who think that soft drinks are against the WoW; sometimes you see hints of that attitude when visiting sites owned by church members and find that the only Coke they sell is caffeine free (Southern Virginia University’s cafeteria is like this, but the Nauvoo Cafe in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building sells regular Coke.)
My personal take is that if something’s become a problem for you — if it makes you feel sick, or every time you see it you need to eat three pounds or drink 40 ounces of it — then, well, isn’t it the Word of Wisdom? Otherwise, it’s coffee, tea, alcohol, tobacco and illegal drugs, full stop: that’s the temple recommend, “will my Bishop say something to me” list. You don’t need other people to build fences around the law for everyone just so you can exercise common sense in your own life.
(Geoff: were you really posting at 3am?)
Interesting excerp from Hinckley/Wallace interview on Sixty Minutes:
GBH: It is demanding. And that’s one of the things that attracts people to this church. It, it stands as an anchor in a world of shifting values.
MW [voiceover; footage of GBH interview]: Example. Mormons adhere to a very strict health code.
[GBH interview]MW: No alcohol, no tobacco, no coffee, no tea, not even caffeinated soft
drinks…
GBH: Right.
MW: …eat meat sparingly, exercise…
GBH: Right.
MW: …get plenty of sleep.
GBH: Right. It’s wonderful!
To clarify for Felipe, the MTC sells only caffeine free beverages.
My previous stake president happened to also be the head of the missionary program. He told me that the decision to sell caffeine free at the MTC was just a management decision a long time ago solely to avoid controversy. He says they have debated selling regular Coke several times over the years, but have ultimately decided against it, worrying that all the sudden adding the straight stuff to vending machines would be interpreted as a church-wide endorsement of caffeinated pop.
For what it’s worth, Elder Holland came to speak to us while I was at the MTC. My companion and I had been pulled aside to help carry some flowers into the administrative area of the main building. Elder Holland arrived to meet the MTC president just as we were walking past. In front of the president’s office was a cart with some refreshments, which included 2 cans of straight up Pepsi. Of course I didn’t see Elder Holland actually throw back a can of the evil beverage, but I felt much less guilty buying coke in the mission field after that.
All that aside, I probably ought to give up pop anyway. While the caffeine does nothing for me, nothing with an ingredient list like that can be good for you.
Most members in Utah base their anti-Coke positions on the fact that the MTC only sells caffeine free. A few base it on the interview Kathy C. quotes above. For me, the MTC theory is debunked. As far as the Hinckley interview goes- I think he was just getting the question out of the way. I saw that interview. He had his answer ready before Mike Wallace even mentions caffeinated soft drinks. I don’t think that exchange qualifies as the church’s stance on Coke.
Tossman, agreed with your #33. I’ve known plenty of high councilmen, bishops, etc who drink coke or dr pepper.