[_yb2s]

Most "chocolate" products really have little, if any chocolate. Google says Hershey's milk chocolate is only 11% actual cacao. Still, plenty of people eat 85-100% cacao dark chocolate, or even savory chocolate foods like Mole in Mexican food, which I think should be considered separately from, e.g. chocolate flavored candy. Interestingly, cacao is one of the best dietary sources of copper, and it seems plausible that getting more copper this way would overall reduce risk of cardiovascular disease [1-3].

  [1] https://perfecthealthdiet.com/2012/11/chocolate-what-is-the-optimal-dose/ 
  [2] https://perfecthealthdiet.com/recommended-supplements/
  [3] https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/204871/dark-chocolate-cuts-heart-deaths-australian-study

[khiqxj]

you get enough copper (to meet national recommendations) just by eating anything, no need to seek it out.

what i want to know is how to correctly interpret all these studies that claim some food substantially increases health outlooks.

while those are spam websites (buy this, buy that, amazonamazonamazonamazonamazon), its still possible for them to be correct

[_yb2s]

If you follow those links deeper, there is substantial reduction in cardiovascular disease risk with higher copper intake from supplementation, if it is balanced with zinc intake. National recommendations just prevent acute deficiency symptoms and don't address chronic illness risk.

The perfect health diet website isn't trying to sell you supplements but just make it easier to find what they buy for themselves personally, it's a orphaned health blog by a scientist couple I know personally that make their money elsewhere as researchers- they haven't even updated the blog in ~4 years. They wrote a very detailed nutrition book where they evaluate the risk/benefits of each common nutrient backed up by a deep literature review- basically redoing what the FDA did for the recommendations you cite, but with newer data. The other one is just a pop news summary of an actual journal article.