The candy in your daughter’s Halloween pumpkin is calling you – the Snickers and Milky Way bars, the Reese’s cups and M&M’s. It’s all you can do to keep from sneaking away with your favorites while she’s at school.

Ahh, chocolate, it can drive you to distraction. The smoky-sweet taste, the heavenly aroma, the gilded mouth feel of pure cocoa butter – nothing else compares.

But there’s no need to skulk about. Chocolate is good for you. In fact, it could be considered a health food. I wouldn’t lie to you.

Chocolate contains more flavonoids – which decrease inflammation, protect blood vessels from rupturing and cells from damage – than well-known antioxidants such as green tea, pomegranate juice and even red wine.

“Absolutely, it’s healthy,” said Durango naturopath Nicola St. Mary. “It’s high in antioxidants, it’s a good source of tyrosine, and, if it’s bitter enough, it stimulates digestion.”

It didn’t take long to get to the catch, did it?

For the purposes of this article and your waistline, we aren’t talking about Twix and Almond Joys. We’re talking about the real deal, and the more of it the better – cacao liquor and butter, which comprise the cacao percentage listed on every chocolate bar sold in this country. (Chocolate is made from cacao beans.)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration considers any candy bar with more than 35 percent cacao to be dark chocolate. Unhappily, local nutritionists do not.

“It has to be 70 percent cacao to be good for you,” said Tiffany Godwin, health coach at Natural Grocers.

But what about the heavenly Chocolove bar with crystallized ginger – at 65 percent – that we both love? It has ginger, and it’s sinfully dark. Surely it’s nourishing?

“It’s a delicious treat, and it’s fine to have it in our diet, but we shouldn’t be under the misconception that it’s good for us,” she said. “We just can’t fool ourselves.”

Oh, but I bet we do. How many of us have ever eaten 70-percent dark chocolate? I won’t say it’s an acquired taste, but if you grew up on Hershey’s and Nestlé, it takes some getting used to.

OK, so let’s compare. A 1.5-ounce Hershey’s bar has about 11 percent cacao, 210 calories and 24 grams of sugar. A similar amount of the gourmet, dark-chocolate TCHO bar has 70 percent cacao, 220 calories and 14 grams of sugar. Notice the difference in the sugar content. Trust me, your dietician will. And truth be told, the darker bar (with cacao sourced from Ghana) has a sensuous texture, fragrant aroma and a taste perfectly balanced between bitter and sweet. Hershey’s? Well ... not so much.

If you’re an all-American chocolate lover and you want to branch out, you might try a Newman’s Own bar with 54 percent cacao. But while your conscience might be better off (a portion of the profit goes to charity), your mouth surely won’t. The pale bar is very sweet, tastes mildly of soap and leaves one with a waxy feeling on the tongue. (Stick to Hershey’s.)

If you desire to outdo even the nutritionists on chocolate’s health benefits, hop up the cacao ladder to Green and Black’s Organic 85 percent (St. Mary’s favorite). Sugar weighs in at a mere 5 grams.

The downside is you can’t eat it without puckering up. It has terrific chocolate flavor, a silky feel and the satisfying quality of anything containing 21 grams of good fat. But you can’t taste anything for the next 10 minutes – real chocolate is really strong – and you’ll be tempted to dip your tongue directly into the sugar bowl to expunge the bitterness.

So what’s a health-conscious chocolate-lover to do? And we haven’t even asked if our chocolate can contain something other than straight cacao and sugar. What if a person wants a raisin in his or her bar, or say, a bit of toffee?

The good news is most nutritionists will allow that in limited amounts. The bad news is ... Do you really want to know? If not, stop here. Those dabs of Rain Forest coconut toffee, that added creaminess of caramel, even a piquant shot of Fair Trade coffee in your bar are not remotely good for you.

That’s because pretty much whatever isn’t cacao is sugar or an additive. Lest you protest, remember that milk, often included in chocolate, contains a plethora of natural sugar. And chocolate manufacturers, even those making the darker gourmet versions, aren’t throwing in ginger or cranberries or coffee without sweetening them first.

So here’s the brass tacks of enjoying chocolate without the guilt. Small portions. You knew that, but dieticians stress an acceptable serving size is an ounce, or about two to three squares, depending on the size of the bar.

Also, chocolate is a treat, not a staple. Advice from health-care sources varied, but most discouraged consuming it more than three to four times a week. You can’t escape the fact that sugar is the evil in the American diet, responsible for everything from obesity to diabetes to blood sugar problems. So it does have to be dark, because the more cacao it contains, the more healthful it is.

“It’s a difficult balance between how much is good for you and how much contributes to weight gain,” said Stephanie Gall, lead dietician for Mercy Regional Medical Center.

She recommends buying organic or Fair Trade chocolate bars and checking the label for additives and stabilizers. Just like any other packaged food, the less processed it is, the more health benefits it will have.

But what about chocolate makes us love it so much? For one, it’s a mood enhancer. The amino acids lift your serotonin, which makes you feel happier. For another, it’s more feeling than food. When we crave chocolate, we’re not lusting after cacao itself, we’re longing for the familiar.

“Most of us aren’t eating it for the taste, we’re eating it to meet a need,” said St. Mary. “We’re stressed, we’re sad, we’re happy, we’re tired. It’s comfort food.”

And for many of us, indeed it is, better than mashed potatoes or ice cream or our mother’s famed spaghetti. Two squares of Chocolove’s crystallized ginger 65 percent bar, please. But just this once.

phasterok@durangoherald.com

What’s in it for you?

Chocolate bars

Green and Black’s organic: 85% cacao, serving size 40 g, 260 calories, 21 g fat, 14 g carbohydrates, 5 g fiber, 5 g sugar, 4 g protein

THCO: 70% cacao, serving size 40 g, 220 calories, 12 g fat, 20 g carbohydrates, 0 g fiber, 14 g sugar, 4 g protein

Taza: 60% cacao, serving size 42 g, 240 calories, 15 g fat, 23 g carbohydrates, 4 g fiber, 16 g sugar, 3 g protein

Newman’s Own: 54% cacao, serving size 64 g, 330 calories, 13 g fat, 37 g carbohydrates, 4 g fiber, 28 g sugar, 3 g protein

Chocolate bars with other ingredients

Chocolove with crystallized ginger: 65% cacao, serving size 30 g, 160 calories, 11 g fat, 15 g carbohydrates, 3 g fiber, 11 g sugar, 2 g protein

Salazon with sea salt and caramel: 57% cacao, serving size 43 g, 204 calories, 13 g fat, 24 g carbohydrates, 3 g fiber, 19 g sugar, 2 g protein

Alter Eco with dark coconut toffee: 45% cacao, serving size 40 g, 210 calories, 14 g fat, 24 g carbohydrates, 2 g fiber, 20 g sugar, 2 g protein

Divine coffee milk chocolate: 27% cacao, serving size 42 g, 220 calories, 13 g fat, 23 g carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 23 g sugar, 3 g protein