Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones Classic: Chocolate

Episode Date: June 18, 2024

To coincide with the opening of Justin and Sydnee's stage production, we bring to you a classic episode about the medicinal history of chocolate! This week on Sawbones, Dr. Sydnee and Justin take a sunrise and sprinkle it with dew. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers https://taxpayers.bandcamp.com/

Hi everybody, it's Justin here. Well, Sydney and I just wrapped up the first weekend of the show. We're directing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It went great. If you can come out next weekend, we'd love to see it, but we just wrapped that up and I am about to get on a plane to fly on out to St. Louis and Kansas city and Tyson's Virginia for our shows this week. If you head on over to the McElroy Dot family,

go to tours, you can get tickets for those if you wanna come, but anyway, obviously between all this, we did not record a new Sawbones, but I thought, hey, what would be better? What better time to resuscitate an episode that is nearly, if you can believe this, nearly 10 years old. It's unbelievable. It's one of the earliest sawbones,

but it is about chocolate. So I wanted to bring it back and I hope you all enjoy it and we will be back with you next week with a fresh new sawbones. I'm just certain of it. And I'm just so tired. Anyway, hey, Liz, I do hope you enjoy it. And I'm just so tired. Anyway, hey, Liz, I do hope you enjoy the episode and thank you so much.

And we'll be back with you again soon. Sawbones is a show about medical history and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, this one is about some books.

One, two, one, two, three, four... We came across a pharmacy with its windows blasted out Pushed on through the broken glass and had ourselves a look around The medicines, the medicines, that escalate my cough for the mouth Hello everybody and welcome to Sawbones, a meddle tour of misguided medicine. I am your co-host Justin McElroy And I'm Sydney McElroy Sydney, happy belated Valentine's Day Aw, thank you love. I mean I wish you happy Valentine's Day on the day.

You did, you did. You not only wished me happy Valentine's Day, you got me a Valentine and candy, well chocolate. Yeah. Not candy, I don't know, was it? Yeah. I don't know, you make the call. I don't know what you would classify it.

So it was wonderful. Justin had delivered to me a platter of chocolate covered Oreos and Nutter Butters and graham crackers and pretzels. It's really hard once you're married to buy chocolate for the other person, because especially if you're like trying to watch what you eat,

because you're basically saying like, well, this is at our house for a while now. Now you have this to contend with. Yeah, because I mean, I'm not gonna eat all of that. No, so I'm gonna have to jump in there and I'll feel obligated to help out, do my part. You know, it's always nice too, is my dad has gotten me a heart-shaped box of chocolates

every Valentine's Day for as long as I've been allowed to eat chocolate. That's sweet. Yes. That's nice, I been allowed to eat chocolate. That's sweet. Yes. That's nice. I gotta do that for chocolate. I mean, now would not be good. No, don't give her chocolate now.

She's six months old, she can't eat chocolate. I have been eating a considerable amount of chocolate though, I'll be honest, despite my best efforts. Well, you know, that's not completely bad for you. Oh yeah? There is some possible small health benefits to chocolate, or at least people have thought so for a long time.

So you're saying it's a health food, and I'm crushing it. No, no, no. I'm not saying chocolate is a health food. I'm gonna say that several times, I think. This one weird food will make you live 20 years longer. It is chocolate, Check it out. No, that's not what you're going to get if you click on that link on Facebook. I don't know, actually, I don't know what you're going to get.

Probably Garcinia, Cambogia, probably. I don't know. How is it? I haven't clicked on it. What makes chocolate the world's greatest health food, Timmy? OK, it's not. But let's let's talk about chocolate because for for a long time now not just currently but for a long time we thought that it was a

Medicine of sorts and before I get into this I want to thank Adam for recommending this topic. He thought it would be a good Valentine's Day topic and we're close enough. It's there ish after we within the, I don't know, perimeter of Valentine's Day. So people have been, first of all, chocolate goes back a long time. Sure. Aztecs. Largely when we talk about early uses of chocolate, we're mainly talking about it as a drink. People would take the cocoa beans and then crush them and add like hot water and there was some sort of like Kind of like hot chocolate drink or cold sometimes a cold chocolate drink but something but a beverage

So largely as we're talking about chocolate in ancient times and then throughout history were mainly talking about Drinking chocolate and then I'll tell you when we start switching to other forms It dates back as far as 600 BC. And as you kind of alluded to, it was mainly in the Americas first. So in Mexico and in Central America, it actually reached Europe because Cortez brought it back after visiting the native peoples there

and discovering this amazing brown gold, as it was sometimes called. Brown gold. Which personally, I like chocolate a lot. So I think I would call gold like. Yellow chocolate. I mean, given the choice between the two. Slide a little bit of that yellow chocolate on my finger, my man.

We are getting hitched. I'd rather have that. Yeah. Um. Um. Uh. Uh. In the early American cultures,

it was a very precious drink. It wasn't something that, um, you or I would probably have access to. We aren't fancy enough. No, we are not. We are not of high enough stature. Montezuma drank it, famous for the revenge. Of revenge fame.

He drank it before sex to give him energy and stamina because it was thought to provide both of those things. Yeah, that worked. You know, they say chocolate is the food of love. We're quoting the room now. It's going to be a good episode. I like where we're going. In general, it was seen as a strengthening drink,

that it would give you a lot of- Vigor. Yes. And for that reason, it was not suitable for women and children You give women and children too much stamina. Who knows what's gonna happen? I don't know they're gonna Not be oppressed by men. I guess that's what our secret this whole time in Chocolate keeping if you if you're women and kids away from chocolate. Keeping women and children away from chocolate, you've done a really bad job.

I think chocolate is primarily marketed to women and children. Yeah, it fixes every problem women have according to love commercials. Yeah, that's not true, but that's okay. Now drinking too much could make you deranged, or so it was thought, but- Too much vigor, too much vim.

Yes, you just get like so much energy. Ah, we'll flip a table. But in moderation, it was invigorating and you could use it for anything. Angina, dysentery, dental problems, indigestion, constipation, fatigue, hemorrhoids, it cured kidney disease. Didn't.

No, but they used it for all those things. We have evidence that it was used for all of these things. Sometimes you get a little carried away and you forget your your Old-timey, um, well didn'ts. I guess you could call them the didn'ts where you say they didn't do this and instead He gets swept up in the mythos that you say they did it did all this stuff. It didn't no no, it didn't And it was very much seen I think in in these cultures as like a spiritual thing. It was this amazing, tasty beverage that probably made you healthy in a lot of ways. It wasn't formalized until it was brought over to Europe, probably in the 16th century, first via Spain. It was Cortes brought it back to the King of Spain. And then as it spread throughout Europe,

people began to see it in light of what was then the system of medicine, the Four Humors. Right. So just to review, because we kind of reference it a lot, but I don't think we've talked about the Four Humors for a while. So- Have you done a Four Humors episode? We've never done an episode just all the show members

So just in general we used to think that all medicine Was the result of or all medicine was based on the idea that the human body had four different? fluids in it basically blood black bile yellow bile and phlegm and basically, blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm. And if you had all of those things in the proper balance, you were healthy, and if they got out of balance, you got sick. So it's pretty much the gist of it.

Got it. Now, what went along with that was also this belief that people had different climates. Individual people had different climates? Well, it depends on what age you were. So for instance, babies and little kids were hot and humid, young adults were hot and dry, adults were cold and dry,

and old people were cold and humid. And when you get your humors out of balance, these natural climates get out of whack, and then you need to eat or drink something that's kind of the opposite in order to balance it Okay, you see what I'm saying? Yeah, so he gets eat me pretzels Yeah, a little bit of a dry mouth and you need something to balance it out like a frosty soda I'm sorry. Do you mean peasles peasles? So somebody's all to us and peasles and you got a I'm sorry, do you mean peasles? Peasles, somebody sold to us some peasles and you got a frost chip asoso to just wash it all down.

That's similar. That's similar, right? That's fair, yeah. Basically? Yeah, I mean that's generally, because cocoa was seen as cool and dry and it would ward off hot, humid conditions. It works in the York peppermint patty commercials

from way back when. That's true, they make it sound like eating something with chocolate in it is a very crisp, cool. Refreshing, yeah. And it's, I mean, nothing against York peppermint patties, like I like them. I don't think, I mean, it's refreshing. I don't think they're ever big enough.

It's chocolate, it's candy. I need one the size of a dinner plate, because they're so thin. I feel like I'm not eating anything ever. It doesn't matter how big they are either. You can get one of those big ones, it's like, what did I just do? That wasn't a candy bar.

You know, like you just put it in a shape that I understand. When you say you need one the size of a dinner plate. One the size of a dinner plate for it to be satisfying. Okay. I think you'd feel awful. I get the sensation, but I want the other sensation of being full from a York Peppermint Patty. You'd get the sensation that you were going to spend the rest of the day throwing up.

No, I would. I'd feel great, so refreshed, like whizzing down a mountain slope on ice and snow. Nobody has eaten a York Peppermint Patty the size of a dinner plate and felt like skiing afterwards. Nobody better have ever eaten the size of a York peppermint patty the size of a dinner plate period because nobody called me about it to say, J-Man, you got to get up in this. And I've made my desire to eat a giant York peppermint patty very clear. Okay.

Well, not everyone knows. So the word is out. P.O. Box 54, 100 West Virginia 25706. If you come across a giant York Beverage Patty the size of a dinner plate, it's not gonna be satisfied. Please do not do this. Thank you. Okay, so you could just take chocolate alone, cocoa alone,

or you could add different things to it depending on what sickness you had. So alone, for instance, you would make your cocoa beverage, your chocolate, and it could treat liver disease or breast issues in general or stomach problems. So that's a big list. If you add gum to it, you can stop diarrhea. If you add corn and vanilla and then make a paste out of it

and then put it on you or maybe eat it, I'm not sure. Then it's an aphrodisiac. I'm gonna guess eat it, because if you're covered in corn, chocolate, vanilla paste, well. I don't know. That's a thing. Depends on what you're into, maybe.

Okay. There's a bunch of other herbs and plants you could mix it with and it would fatten people up. And chocolate was generally seen that way throughout the centuries was if somebody was sickly and thin and had something that was causing them to waste away, chocolate was a good food for them. It would fatten them up.

But you gotta go by how you feel right? Yeah, so sometimes you feel Like a nut in your chocolate and sometimes you you don't Right, right. I think this probably predates almond joys But not mounds mounds were definitely around Most mounds you see were made in the Dark Ages Mounds are ancient. Most mounds you see were made in the Dark Ages. You can find all kinds of recipes for your health chocolate, for your medicinal chocolate. You know, just friggin' scroll Pinterest, you're gonna get the phenome.

Use this ancient chocolate blend to help cure depression. Yes, I'm on to you, but thank you. Do appreciate the effort. One that I found, and this is a great recipe. This is specifically for people who are sick, but not with a fever. So if they have some sort of illness, but not one that has a fever, careful. You could use cocoa, sugar, cinnamon, vanilla,

cloves, anise, chili powder, and serve it as a warm drink. And you could also add almonds if you wanted to. So wait, sometimes if you feel like a nut. if you wanted to. So wait, sometimes if you feel like a nut. Okay. The thing is, that's, I mean, that sounds delicious. Yeah, it sounds restorative, I would say. So I mean.

Except for the anise. Yeah, I know, you don't dig that. Ugh, keep it, ugh. But this sounds like a delicious spicy chocolate drink. Yeah. Like this would be great. I can see why you would want to drink this. And curative, too, is the other thing.

And part of the reason that the view of chocolate as something that was medicinal was very important as it flourished in different countries in Europe, because religious groups started denouncing it pretty quickly. Chocolate was seen as something decadent. It did, largely because people tended to add things like sugar to it. It could make you invigorated.

It was seen as something connected to like, you know, sexual feelings. So it would encourage sinful impulses was the fear. So if you just drank it without having to for a medicinal reason, you were seen as kind of being sinful or as giving into a sinful impulse. So you needed a doctor to prescribe it to you in order to get away with it.

It's like, I don't know, marijuana? Right, it was medicinal chocolate. It was medicinal chocolate, no, no, no, it's cool. I have glaucoma. I have a license for this chocolate, got prescription so as a result of this doctors Expanded it to use to everything it was a diuretic Meaning it would make you pee it was an expectorant so it would you know make you cough or you know break stuff up If you mixed it what this is probably a less favorable recipe if you mixed it with ground human skull

Musk and This is probably a less favorable recipe. If you mixed it with ground human skull, musk and ambergris. That's what's in a whatchamacallit. So now you know, there's your answer. Those are the ingredients of a whatchamacallit. Those are not in fact the ingredients of a whatchamacallit. Whoever makes that, please don't sue us. What's ambergris? So ambergris is, this is gross. It's a waxy substance that is produced

in the digestive tract of sperm whales. And it was largely used as a perfume base, like a fixative for perfume. Nowadays we usually don't use that, we use synthetic things, but you still could use it for that. So if you wanted to mix that with some human skull musk and chocolate, that would be good for hypochondria, largely because I think if you

gave somebody this, they'd go, I'm not ever sick again. I'm fine. No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I said I was sick. As it spread throughout Europe, there were three main areas, and I kind of alluded to this, that it was used in medicine. It was weight gain for the sickly, it stimulated the nervous system, so for people who felt like fatigued or just kind of puny, wimpy people, and it improved your digestion. Oh, whereas one, I like this one quote from a French doctor, therefore, the use of chocolate is salubrious, it excites and strengthens with its warm mild juiciness, the bow's inborn warmth and strength,

it helps digestion, it fosters the spread of food and the secretion of the unnecessary, it accumulates fat, it is not an enemy to the brain, it is Venus's friend and very suitable for body and soul. That's nice, you couldn't fit all that in a wrapper, but it's nice. I know, I mean I think some of that, yeah sure, I think chocolate is very suitable for body and soul. That's nice. You couldn't fit all that in a wrapper, but it's nice. No, I mean, I think some of that, yeah, sure. I think chocolate is very suitable for body and soul.

Yeah. The Grand Duke Ferdinando Iudemidici found it great for flatulence, which he felt the need to record for his scribe, so we can all know that now. Write this down. There was this great spread of chocolate over, you know, over the continent of Europe.

There was finally some pushback against it when it hit Florence and it hit Florence in a big way. For the Florianians. Floridians? Floridians, I know it's hard to believe. Floridians. Floridians? Floridians, I know, it's hard to believe. Florida. Italians. Yes, were way into chocolate.

And in the 18th century, there was a doctor there, Dr. Giovanni Battista Felici, also known as the Great Chocolate Accuser. Ugh, what a distinction that is. And he thought Coco basically he didn't think it was medicine and part of his reason is he thought it was Mislabeled I kind of said that it was seen as a cold dry substance and so in the humoral system of medicine It would be used for hot things. Well, he thought it was mislabeled and that it was a hot Substance and especially because we tended to drink it hot

and we added all of these spices to it and sugar and whatnot. And so as a result, if you drank a lot of it, it would ferment your blood and then your blood would spoil. And I don't know what that means, but it would be bad probably, your blood spoiled. So he started accusing chocolate,

sorry, the chocolate inquisition. There was a guy in Florence who worked at a coffee shop, Francesco Zetti, who his name, he was known as the Hunchback of Pannon. Why's that? Because that was the coffee shop he worked at and he was a hunchback. That's not super clever, but.

Which I don't know if those are the two people, the corners of the ring over here, we've got the great chocolate accuser, and over here we've got the hunchback of Pannon. I don't know, I don't know who's gonna win. But he was really worried that his business would drop off because in addition to coffee at their shop, they sold chocolate drinks.

And he was afraid, oh my gosh, if business drops off, I'm gonna get fired. He didn't own the shop either, this is just a guy who worked there, was really worried about his job. And so he wink wink commissioned a report from a doctor that was anonymous About how great chocolate was and then published it a defensive chocolate Sorry, this old tobacco ads that tell you like this specific brand is good for your t-zone

Yeah, that was pretty much it he was like no no look I've got this report from a doctor locally and he won't give his name, but I swear a doctor definitely wrote this about how great chocolate is. It's great. Basically all the people who made chocolate jumped in defense of Zeddy and joined his side and obviously chocolate kind of won out. That's how lobbying was invented. So what's next, Ed? Let's move closer into the future yet still past of chocolate. Well, Justin, I'd be happy to do that for you, but why don't you head on down to the billing department with me first?

Let's go. The medicines, the medicines that escalate my car before the mouth. Hello, sleepyheads. Sleeping with Celebrities is your podcast pillow pal. We talk to remarkable people about unremarkable topics, all to help you slow down your brain and drift off to sleep. For instance, we have the remarkable Neil Gaiman. I'd always had a vague interest in live culture, food preparation. Sleeping with Celebrities, hosted by me, John Moe, on MaximumFun.org,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Night night. You can't really know if your own show is any good. So I asked my kids about ours. Is Jordan Jesse Go a good show? No, definitely not. It's really bad. I would say out of 10, maybe like a 4 out of 10. It's just really boring.

Yeah, zero. Subscribe to Jordan Jesse Go, a comedy show for grownups. So in the 18th century, chocolate is at this point, well established as a medicinal beverage. But now it's especially recommended that you melt it and add it to milk. Come on guys, like we're onto you. Like we know, I mean this is hot chocolate.

It's hot chocolate. I mean that's great. It's great. It's great. It's funny you can even find, it suggested that if you couldn't afford chocolate, because by now of course it had spread to everybody was it was recommended, hey for your health eat chocolate, but not everybody could afford to buy it. So you could make like a fake chocolate By toasting flour and then mix it with sugar and milk and egg yolks. Okay, that's Sounds good. I would actually try that. I think not chocolate. It's not chocolate Do you remember that cooking show we were watching where somebody tried to make chocolate? Do you remember that lady? It was like the worst cooks or something and she tried

Do you remember that lady? It was like the worst cooks or something. And she tried it. She thought you could make chocolate by, I don't even remember what she put in there. Oh yeah, I do remember that though. Yeah, she was trying to make chocolate. Holy crap. With like peanut butter or?

I think she was trying to, yeah. Kero syrup or something. I don't know. It's like she didn't know that chocolate was like a, no there's cocoa. Like there's something that denotes chocolate. Yeah, no, chocolate's like an actual substance. It's not a toasted flour.

No, it is not, it's not. In the 19th century, we start to see chocolate in different forms coming into play, and then some famous chocolate names. For instance, John Cadbury, was a Quaker who. You know they're getting stricter about important Cadbury chocolate in the US.

I know. It's gonna be a thing, not Cadbury, as we know it, but British Cadbury chocolate, not like. It's better. Cadbury cream eggs and Cadbury many eggs, which are great. Cadbury many eggs are which are great. Yeah, which are great But every very milk is the best. Oh the dairy milk. So oh man, you guys know how to do chocolate Sorry, everybody who loves Hershey's but there it is. It's yeah

So John Cadbury was concerned about how much everybody was drinking booze and he thought you know What would be better is if everybody started drinking chocolate instead, because it's still tasty and it's good for you. So I'm going to start making chocolate and encouraging everybody to drink it and advertising it as good for you, which obviously turned out well for us all now. Chocolate was also at the time

considered a healthier alternative to tea. And so it was encouraged that, especially since we had all kinds of kids who were- Healthier than tea? Uh-huh. Chocolate was healthier than tea. So, you know, we've got all these, for kids who were stuck in like factories and work houses

and they were all sickly because they didn't have a lot of food, the thought was like, well, if we could give them each a little bit of chocolate every day, they'd all be healthy. I mean, they'd be happier, I think. They'd definitely be happier. It was linked heavily with energy, with vigor, being kind of robust.

That's like really old school. Just the fact that that association went back thousands of years. Oh yeah, no, I mean chocolate has always, and I don't know if it's because early on, like the idea of mixing chocolate with sugar, or cocoa with sugar, kind of making chocolate, was not like, that was not new.

People have been doing that for a very long time. And sugar obviously makes you feel more energetic, but I guess just the properties from cocoa alone, people felt better afterwards. Makes me feel good. Yeah, right. There was one testimonial from that time period I read that there was a husband who was being treated

by his doctor with chocolate. His doctor had prescribed him drinking some chocolate every evening for some sort of respiratory condition that he had, and his wife decided, you know what, while he's drinking chocolate, I'm gonna, I mean, it's good, I'll drink some chocolate too and it's good for you, so what can it hurt? And the story goes that she ended up getting pregnant,

even though she was supposed to be barren. Chocolate? So chocolate'll get you pregnant. Chocolate will get you pregnant. I think that's the hope on Valentine's Day, right? Yep. This is also the same. Well, no.

No. No, not that. I don't think. You know what, baby? Tonight, I'm gonna get you pregnant. Is that what men are trying to do when they get women chocolate? Try one of the coconut caramels.

They're trying to get you pregnant? Gonna impregnate. You're gonna be pregnant like this particular bonbon is pregnant with strawberry crimp. I'm gonna tell Charlie that to scare her if any boy gives you chocolate. He's trying to get you pregnant. Run, come tell mommy.

Even if it's the Easter Bunny. Especially if it's the Easter Bunny. especially if it's the Easter Bunny. Watch out for Santa. Watch out for Santa. He tries to trick you by giving you an orange. Nice try. This is also the same century in which Nestle invented powdered milk chocolate. And this trend developed of milk chocolate at this point. And this was kind of a double-edged sword because on one hand it was not as healthy

milk chocolate, but on the other hand this was a powdered thing that everybody could get and keep on your shelf and so the use of chocolate became much more widespread as a result. We also see the chocolate bar making its debut. And these different forms of chocolate, not just as a liquid, but different solids, not only led to it being more widespread just as chocolate, but also being used in medicines in different ways.

So like coating pills and tablets and stuff with chocolate became very popular. Like Miracle Max. Exactly like Miracle Max. That's what you got to do. It helps it go down better. And the idea of health chocolate became a thing as well. So we start to see products because we're kind of moving into the patent medicine era.

And chocolate played a role in that. We've talked about this before, like medicines that really contain things like alcohol or cocaine or something, opium, to give you an effect But nothing that they nothing like what they advertised it would do right similarly chocolate was used this way So you could see like dr. Day's chocolate tonic laxative Which just tasted like chocolate. I don't know probably it you know probably was a laxative We were really good at making laxatives That was one of the things we could do if If you needed to poop, we could fix that.

We got you. There was also, one I liked was Housewalt Vigor Chocolate. Sounds good. You know, even the Heath Bar, which came out early into the 20th century. The Heath Bar was supposed to be healthy for you. Its original slogan was Heath for better health. Nice try, guys.

It's literally, it's toffee and chocolate. There's not even like nuts to help you make your case. These Snickers, they're like, you'll be full afterwards. Snickers' whole campaign is like, eat one of these, you don't wanna eat anything else, cause ugh, what'd I do? I don't think that's how the ad goes. Yeah, that's basically how the ad goes.

This is also the century where Milton Hershey makes his debut, it's basically, oh yeah, it goes. This is also the century where Milton Hershey makes his debut and you know, we kind of, that changes the whole concept of chocolate on the US side and ads for Hershey's at the time also push chocolate as kind of like a healthy substance. Similar to like, you know, we, when you see like the old Guinness ads,

like Guinness is good for you, they're all Hershey's ads where it's like Hershey's for your health and that kind of thing. So as we move into the 20th century, we initially still have this view that chocolate is a health food. And it's even included in rations in World War II. Everybody gets a little bit of chocolate,

like all the soldiers, because they need it. It is seen as not just like, not a treat for our fighting men and women, but our fighting men at the time. But like something they- Something they need to keep the strength and the fighting with the hunt. Exactly, they need the chocolate.

But what really starts to move chocolate away from a medicine and into the just food realm is the assertion that fat is bad for you, which we get later in the 1900s. Ruined everything. At this point, because if you were just talking about the pure cocoa beans, you're not talking about a lot of fat,

but the way that we eat chocolate, there is a lot of fat. We eat it with, it's got all the sugar and everything, the carbohydrates, and then all the butter and cream, make it whatever you're gonna make out of the chocolate. So chocolate started to be seen as an indulgence and something that wasn't really good for you. And by the 1950s, we see chocolate really just marketed at this point for being yummy and a treat and something decadent and something that you would have like on a special occasion and not something that you would take,

certainly to make you healthy. Oh, man. healthy. Oh man. But. Oh, it's making a comeback. Now it's good again. That's not the end of the story. Nowadays, and I won't say this is really recent. I think that people have been saying this probably for a good 10, 20 years now.

There is some evidence that maybe chocolate is good for you. Especially chocolate that's more chocolate, more cocoa, you know, dark chocolate. And that's where that comes from. The more chocolate that's in there and the less other stuff, the better it's thought to be for you. So we see some, there are some studies that suggest maybe it's heart healthy,

like it improves your HDL, your good cholesterol. There's a lot of people always talk about flavonoids. I always love to hear that. People ask me like, well, I need to eat dark chocolate, right, and drink some red wine for the flavonoids. And it's like, well, I mean. There are probably other ways to get your flavonoids in. Yeah, and you know, I don't prescribe dark chocolate.

I don't think we're back at that point where we start to see chocolate as something that you could actually prescribe people. Right. But it definitely is seen as healthier for you than it was before. It's also maybe an antioxidant. But the darker the better, right?

Yes, that's generally true with chocolate. Again, just because you're getting more chocolate, like the actual cocoa. Because you can't eat 100% chocolate chocolate. Maybe you can't. Well, I mean, it's very bitter. Ugh. Chocolate has a bitter flavor. Right.

Like pure chocolate, it's bitter. And so we throw the sugar in there so that it tastes good. I used to not be able to eat like even Hershey's special dark. Couldn't do it. Oh man, you're crazy. I know, but now I'm into it. I love dark chocolate. And let's be honest, chocolate is just really good.

So I think it's funny, it's probably our nature to try to find a justification for eating chocolate. I don't think there is, just eat it in moderation. It's like anything else. Maybe dark chocolate is a little bit good for you, but eating that entire platter of chocolate covered Nutter Butters and Oreos that I have downstairs Probably isn't so, you know

So just know what you're doing when you absolutely do eat the entire platter of chocolate covered Butters and graham crackers like we have that's that's gonna do it for us this week Thanks to the taxpayers for let us use your song medicines is our intro and outro. Thanks to you for listening Thanks the maximum fun network for having us on There's a lot of great shows on there for you. Listen to a maximum fun org So go check those totally out. We love being a maximum fun org and there's a lot of great shows there. So don't miss them Anyway, thanks for listening. We'll be back next

Tuesday with another episode of sawb. Until then, I'm Justin McElroy. I'm Sydney McElroy. And as always, don't drill a hole in your head. ["Sawbuds Theme Song"] All right!