Four good reasons to eat chocolate - 'the sweetest way to save a life'

Need an excuse to eat chocolate? How about four good ones? Really good ones.

1. It tastes good.

2. It might be good for you. Dark chocolate has been linked to lowering blood pressure, preventing heart disease, fighting cancer, and providing the ability to fly, to dance better than Nicole Scherzinger, and to think of clever comebacks for rude relatives.

(Only kidding on those last three, but who knows? Maybe they just haven’t looked into them yet.)

3. It can make you feel good, delivering a dose of phenylethylamine, the same thing you get when you’re in love. Yeah, baby.

4. It can do good, if you buy it from a little nonprofit called Rescue Chocolate, which donates 100%--yep, you read it right, 100%--of its net proceeds to animal welfare groups.

The cherry on top? “No animals [are] harmed in the making of these products,” explains the company’s website. “Rescue Chocolate is always 100% vegan. Our chocolate is handcrafted in Brooklyn, NY and certified Kosher Parve. It is made in the finest Belgian tradition with top quality ingredients and no artificial preservatives.”

Enjoy such offerings in September and know that you’re helping In Defense of Animals (IDA), the animal protection organization to which Rescue Chocolate’s donations will go throughout the month.

Each creation features info about animal issues on its packaging and/or via the website:

• The Fix, a “pure, rich dark chocolate bar,” calls attention to pet overpopulation and spay/neuter efforts.

• The Peanut Butter Pit Bull, “crispy peanut butter and luscious 64% dark chocolate,” is dedicated to that much-maligned and misunderstood breed of pooch, one of whom, named Mocha, owns Rescue Chocolate’s founder Sarah Gross.

• Wild at Heart, “dark chocolate hearts filled with zingy raspberry ganache,” spotlights the plight of “circus animals, laboratory subjects, abandoned exotic pets, and victims of ‘roadside zoos’ who were meant to be wild, and to those human caregivers who provide them with love at long last in wild animal sanctuaries.”

Other treats to try: Bow Wow Bon Bons, Pick Me! Pepper, and Foster-iffic Peppermint.

On her blog Gross says she chose IDA as September’s beneficiary because "They have rescued stray dogs in Taiwan, baby seals in South Africa, dolphins in Japan. And of course they are active in the States too—creating sanctuaries for lab animals, exposing and shutting down puppy mills, responding to natural disasters. I can't think of a better group to support this month."

Before tucking into your bar of Mission Feral Fig (which “advocates humane treatment of feral cat colonies”), you can raise it in toast to IDA for their many accomplishments, and to Rescue Chocolate for providing what very well might be, as their motto goes, “the sweetest way to save a life.”

COPYRIGHT LAW REMINDER: All material on this page is covered by copyright and may be reproduced for personal use only. If you wish to reprint, publish, or post anything found here, please contact Animal Policy Examiner at youradopteddog@yahoo.com for permission. Thanks for reading!

INTERESTED IN MORE NEWS AND INFO ABOUT ANIMALS? Visit AnimalBeat.org.

And please check out Katerina's San Diego Dogs Examiner page.

Katerina Lorenzatos Makris (a.k.a. Kathryn Makris) has written 18 books for major publishers and hundreds of articles for publications such as National Geographic Traveler, San Francisco Chronicle, Mother Jones, and two regional news wire services.

A cofounder of AnimalBeat.org, she holds a B.A. in Environmental Science Studies and a lifelong interest in animal issues.

Among her books are Your Adopted Dog: Everything You Need to Know about Rescuing and Caring for a Best Friend in Need (The Lyons Press), coauthored with Shelley Frost, and The Eco-Kids, a series of novels for tweens (Avon Books).

Her story "Small Change" placed as a finalist in The Bark magazine's short fiction contest and will be published this year.

She may be reached at youradopteddog@yahoo.com.