good news food

Sweet: The nutritional value of dark chocolate

Listen to this, friends: According to a new study, being a chocoholic might be a component of a healthy lifestyle. Eating two ounces (50 grams) a day of plain dark chocolate has been found to lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Plus, it tastes great! After all, who doesn’t crave chocolate?

You probably noticed that I qualified the type of chocolate that provided the most benefit — dark chocolate. You see, that’s because dark chocolate (not milk, not white) provides a high-quality source of bioflavonoids that appear to have the ability to maintain cardiovascular health, as well as provide strong antioxidant benefits. For example, a 1 1/2-ounce square of chocolate may have as many antioxidants as a 5-ounce glass of red wine.

Chocolate can be processed in a number of ways, and the manner in which it is processed has a major effect on its nutritional value. In general, the more processed the chocolate, the less cocoa it has. It’s the cocoa bean that has the most nutritional value because it's the source of the majority of the bioflavonoids.

Flavonoids are often also found in wine, fruits and vegetables. These flavonoids have been shown to reduce the amount of cell damage often implicated in heart disease. Flavonoids also help improve vascular function and can assist in lowering blood pressure.

White chocolate (which isn’t really chocolate) is the least nutritious of the three; it contains no cocoa at all. Milk chocolate's basically good for expanding your hips and gut.

However, just because dark chocolate has nutritional value does not give you a license to go on a chocolate binge. Eating more dark chocolate can help lower blood pressure, but you’ll have to balance the extra calories by eating less of other things.

So how do you choose the best dark chocolate? Choose dark chocolate varieties that contain at least 65 percent cacao.

Remember to be smart about consuming chocolate and make sure you aren’t removing nutritious options from your regular meal plan so that you can eat more chocolate.

Instead, limit yourself to no more than one or two ounces of dark chocolate per day, and look for ways to incorporate it into other healthy dishes.

Fresh fruit, low-fat yogurt and high fiber cereal are just a few nutritious dishes that a sprinkle of chocolate would pair well with.

Since fruits and vegetables are rich not only in flavonoids but also in many other nutrients, add more of these items to your diet, as well, and you won't have to worry about going too overboard with the sweets.

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Defensive Driving

Austin-based Tesla faces new probe focused on remote driving feature

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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating 2.6 million Teslas.

Federal regulators have opened an investigation into 2.6 million Teslas after reports of crashes involving the use of company technology that allows drivers to remotely command their vehicle to return to them, or move to another location, using a phone app.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also said Tuesday, January 7 that Austin-based Tesla did not report any of the accidents. Tesla is under order to report crashes on “publicly accessible roads” involving vehicles being operated through its autonomous driving technology.

The new investigation follows another probe launched in October looking into the company's “Full Self-Driving” system after getting reports of crashes in low-visibility conditions, including one that killed a pedestrian. That investigation covers 2.4 million Teslas from the 2016 through 2024 model years.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.

One driver filed a complaint after a crash while using Tesla's “Actually Smart Summon” technology and NHTSA is looking into another three similar incidents based on media reports, the NHTSA said. The agency is looking into 12 total incidents reported by users of the technology.

Each of the vehicles failed to detect posts and other parked vehicles, according to the NHTSA.

Regulators say the vehicles struck objects because the users had "too little reaction time to avoid a crash, either with the available line of sight or releasing the phone app button, which stops the vehicle’s movement.”

Shares of Tesla Inc. slid more than 4 percent in late afternoon trading Tuesday.

Musk has complained that U.S. regulations are too onerous and are holding back the development of self-driving cars. Ethics experts are worried that once President-elect Donald Trump takes office, Musk will push him to ease oversight of Tesla, which just suffered its first decline in annual sales in more than a decade.

Musk donated an estimated $250 million to Trump's presidential campaign and is a frequent guest at Trump's Mar-a-Lago, vetting cabinet nominees and meeting with foreign heads of state. Trump has put Musk in charge of an advisory group, the Department of Government Efficiency, that will recommend where to cut government expenses and staff at federal agencies and reduce regulation.

The NHTSA said it will look into the top speed that Teslas can reach when users deploy its “summons” technology, as well as restrictions on public roads and line of sights requirements. It also said it expects to check for any “connectivity delays" with the app that could result in increased stopping distance.

Tesla’s Model 3 owner’s manual says that its “summons” feature is designed for use only in parking lots and driveways on private property and is disabled on public roads.

The new probe covers 2016-2025 Model S and X vehicles, 2017-2025 Model 3, 2020-2025 Model Y equipped with Tesla's Full Self-Driving driver assistance system.

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