If you say, “Your health is your business,” you’re implying that your day job is not your only or most important line of work.

While the saying is figurative, it’s not an exaggeration or a distortion, so it falls a bit short of being a true metaphor. Instead, it’s a literal truth that needs to be considered when setting priorities.

It just happens to come in the form of a catchy saying.

A catchy saying that just happens to come with a catch. One that’s easily explained, though, through metaphor.

That for this health business of yours not to go belly up, you need to be more than the mentally and physically fit CEO of it. You also need to be the workout watchman, the sensory security guard, the dietary doorman.

That’s because to be as healthy as you can possibly be, you need to be on the lookout constantly.

To be on high alert and guard against the dangers or troubles that can harm your body. To seek out the things that can make it better.

One of which would be, based on a study performed at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom and published in the 2024 November 18 issue of Food & Function, 100-percent cocoa powder. It makes your health better by counteracting two potential dangers.

Too much stress and too much fatty food.

According to the study’s press release, researchers recruited 23 healthy young men and women and fed them a high-fat breakfast. The meal consisted of two butter croissants topped with 10 grams of salted butter, 1.5 slices of cheese, and about a half-pint of whole milk with nearly 2.5 tablespoons of cocoa powder mixed in.

But 100-percent cocoa powder was mixed in only sometimes. Other times alkalized cocoa powder, also known as Dutch Process or European cocoa, was used.

This type of cocoa powder gets washed with a potassium carbonate solution to produce a smoother and more mellow taste, one with less acidity and bitterness. But the washing causes almost all of its flavanols to oxidize, meaning alkalized cocoa has very little antioxidant capability.

Now there are all sorts of antioxidants, and they aid your health in all sorts of ways. Flavanols, whether they be in fruits, vegetables, tea, nuts, or cocoa, are known for regulating blood pressure and protecting cardiovascular health.

There are 695 milligrams of them in 2.5 tablespoons of 100-percent cocoa, but only 6 mg or so stay intact after a potassium carbonate bath. Which is why the researchers used both types of cocoa — and why they assessed blood vessel function using brachial flow-mediated dilatation (FMD) before the breakfast, 8 minutes afterwards, and 8 minutes after that.

The last assessment immediately followed an 8-minute mental-math test designed to induce the sort of stress that leads to “significant increases in heart rate and blood pressure.” Prolonged high blood pressure, as you well know, is often a precursor to cardiovascular disease.

The FMD test predicts the future risk of CVD by measuring how much a brachial artery dilates in response to increased blood flow. The more dilation, the better, for less means damage has been done to the lining of the blood vessels.

Those who drank the milk with the 100-percent cocoa powder added were found to have more dilation, significantly more, during all tests including the two done 30 and 90 minutes after the meal.

To summarize, Catarina Rendeiro, PhD, a lecturer in Nutritional Sciences at the university and the lead author of the paper, says, “This research shows that drinking or eating a food high in flavanols can be used as a strategy to mitigate some of the impact of poorer food choices on the vascular system. This can help us make more informed decisions about what we eat and drink during stressful periods.”

But this research also shows something else. That the point to this article’s metaphor-laden introduction is true.

That you do indeed need to be on high alert when that health business of yours requires you to travel to the grocery store and purchase packaged foods, including cocoa powder. That’s because the most popular brand, Hershey’s, offers two very different choices — yet the choices’ names are virtually the same.

Hershey’s Cocoa 100% Cacao Natural Unsweetened Cocoa. Hershey’s Cocoa Special Dark 100% Cacao.

The first is exactly as the label suggests: nothing but cocoa. That means it is has not been alkalized and retains its full dose of flavanols, those compounds that work as antioxidants and have been linked to regulating blood pressure and protecting cardiovascular health.

And while the second option is truly special and dark when compared to the first cocoa, it’s not really 100 percent. Proof of that is found in the list of ingredients.

Cocoa processed with alkali.

And since you’ve read this article, you now know why the second of Hershey’s two cocoas isn’t nearly as good for you as the first — and why you always need to “be on the lookout” if you want to be as healthy as you can be.