Chocolate makes you thinner! Yes, I know today's date is April 1, but I'm not fooling. This is as serious as Oreos with chocolate Stuf dunked in fudge.
Showing uncommonly good sense - something like the uncommonly good cookies made by elves in a tree - researchers at the University of California, San Diego, decided to compile all known health benefits and harms of chocolate.
Their conclusion is ... oh, come now, need I spell it out? It's as obvious as a Hershey's bar in the middle of a tray full of cucumber salads.
Very well then, I'll say it. You might want to pay attention. Easter is next week, and chocolate rabbits will pounce from everywhere.
The body mass index of people who ate chocolate frequently consistently scored slimmer than the BMI of those less likely to partake. Seriously.
"I wasn't expecting that BMI would be favorable," researcher Dr. Beatrice Golomb told TimeHealthland. "That was a nice surprise.
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"(Lower BMI) clearly wasn't explained by the fact that people who ate chocolate ate less food, because they ate more. And they didn't exercise more than those who didn't eat as much chocolate," Golomb reported.
Gaining the thinness of a Kit Kat quarter doesn't happen by powering more weight on the barbell. It's from giving more weight to the power of the chocolate bar.
This delicious news comes on top of previous research that links chocolate consumption to lower blood pressure, reduced heart disease, cancer prevention, glucose control, lower cholesterol, happy feet and aphrodisiacs. Talk about a candy kiss.
O chocolate, is there nothing you can't do?
As we here at the Burt's Eye View Good Health by Chugging Chocolate Report preach, chocolate IS a health food.
First, chocolate comes from the cocoa bean, and beans are legumes, a healthy food group that also includes peas, lentils, mesquite, peanuts, alfalfa and clover. It's your choice, eat a bale of hay or reach for chocolate.
Dark chocolate especially is jam-packed with flavonoids, which are excellent antioxidants.
As I've told you before, "anti" means against and "oxidation" is what causes rust on my car. Therefore, logically we can conclude that if you wish to prevent big, gaping rust holes in your stomach, start taking regular doses of dark chocolate, such as Mounds bars or Hershey's Special Dark.
Chocolatiers even stir ''superfoods'' into the wonderful elixir and market it as ''functional chocolate,'' stuff that even increases stamina and brain power.
What a Mr. Goodbar! The benefits of chocolate are so incredibly awesome that I stopped reading the reams of evidence. Besides, the next section was some Twix or other about moderation. Not important.
So when you're out there stocking up on Easter candy for the kids, make sure to get double for yourself. Why stop at an ounce of prevention when you can snap up 6 ounces of Russell Stover rabbit and lose tons of weight as a bonus?
Don't forget to submit the bill to your health insurance. They'll gladly pay for it under the preventive care clause. Either that or they'll enjoy a good Snickers over it.
----- Share a Reese's with Cole at burtseyeview@tribtoday.com or on the Burton W. Cole page on Facebook.