I never associated hot cocoa with good health. It was just a better, lower fat alternative to an intense craving for, let's say, ½ pound of dark chocolate devoured in one sitting, or a really big slice of Mud Pie.

But recently, hot cocoa has been elevated to a new status: Health Drink. Recently, researchers at Cornell University have found that cocoa teems with antioxidants that prevent cancer. In fact, cocoa has nearly twice the antioxidants of red wine and up to three times those found in green tea. This discovery surprised even the researchers: "If I had made a prediction before conducting the tests, I would have picked green tea as having the most antioxidant activity," says Chang Y. Lee, chairman of the Department of Food Science and Technology at the university's New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, NY, who led the team of researchers in the study.

Faced with the choice of drinking red wine, green tea or hot cocoa, Lee suggests enjoying all three in different parts of the day: "Personally, I would drink hot cocoa in the morning, green tea in the afternoon, and a glass of red wine in the evening. That's a good combination," he says.

However using this good news as an excuse to polish off more chocolate bars is a no-no: "Although a bar of chocolate exhibits strong antioxidant activity, the health benefits are still controversial because of the saturated fats present," researchers of the study write. They explain that cocoa has about one-third of a gram of fat per one cup serving, compared with the eight grams of fat in a standard-sized 40 gram chocolate bar.

Okay, so hot cocoa (minus the whipped cream) is a good way to fight cancer, but can't you get just as many antioxidants from, say, eating a carrot stick?

Well, yes, any vegetable you pick up at your produce section (particularly grapes, garlic and spinach) is bound to give you healthy boost of cancer-fighting antioxidants. But how much fun can you possibly have munching on garlic cloves while curled up by the fire on a cold winter night? So this holiday season, drink up your hot cocoa - after all, it's good for your health!