My friend and I see eye to eye on most things but not in our preferences in women and not in the matter of coffee and chocolate. We had quite a little debate about the latter and so I’m throwing it open to you.

Hypothetically: If you were asked to wait in someone’s dining room and help yourself to anything you saw and you went in and sat down; and there, in front of you, was a coffee pot of that steaming, aromatic substance and beside it, a selection of little squares of chocolate of all kinds, would you:

1. Pour yourself a coffee first, take a sip then think about which choc to select
2. Take one little piece of choc to be going on with, then pour yourself a coffee
3. Some other variant?

My friend says number 1. I opt for number 2. You leave a chocolate anywhere around and if I find it - end of story. Chocolate, a girlfriend, smoked salmon, a morning’s sailing, an afternoon at the cricket – I have no resistance to these things. Nor for a good red and a nice peaty single malt but that’s another story.

We both try to defend our addictions. I say choc is good for you. He says coffee is an absolute necessity. Time to call in the big guns and get the lowdown on this for once and for all.

Gabe Mirkin, M.D., for CBS Radio News and other sources I’ve now lost have cobbled this together:

First: The Side Effects of Chocolate

How much chocolate do you eat? Americans consume over 11 pounds per person per year. Indeed, the typical American chocolate consumer knows he isn't nibbling on chocolate bars for health and dietary reasons. It is the one confection we literally hate to love, but it seems the wages of sin make it taste that much better.

If you're one of those who secretly knows that you are a chocolate addict and frequently go on chocolate binges, it's time you realize and read up on some of its effects on your body.

During the last several decades the scientific literature has pointed to chocolate for migraines, acne, obesity, dental cavities, heartburn, rectal itching, and coronary problems.

A new study implicates two chemicals in chocolate - theobromine and caffeine - as villains in a disorder known as fibrocystic breast disease. This benign ailment is characterized by fibrous tissue and cyst fluid in the breasts.

Chocolate also contains methylxanthines which accelerate chemical activity involved in the body's cellular metabolism and can cause certain sensitive tissues to proliferate.

Chocolate also has phenylethylamine, a compound related to amphetamine. This can lead to emotional problems such as feelings of anger, irritability and confusion, depression, hyperactivity, hallucinations, and even violent behavior.

Psychiatrists have pointed out that people resort to chocolate binges when they are depressed.

Chocolate is very high in sugar. A mere ounce of the stuff contains 151 calories. A few slices of apples contain only 65 calories.

Now for the coffee: Report #6344

If you just have to have your morning cup of coffee, you may be addicted to caffeine.

You are dependent on a chemical when you become sick from not being able to take it. A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that when some regular coffee drinkers are suddenly deprived of their morning fix, they suffer from headaches, fatigue and depression and are unable to function at their usual level of efficiency.

Students may be unable to learn and writers may not be able to write. An article in the Journal of the American Medical Association described one worker who made costly errors and another who kept her head on the desk in a dark room. Most of the people withdrawing from caffeine went to bed early.

Moderate use of coffee, tea or soft drinks with caffeine is not harmful to most of people, but caffeine can make you shaky, raise blood pressure, cause irregular heart beats or interfere with sleep. If you have these symptoms and want to stop drinking caffeinated beverages, doctors recommend that you stop cold turkey at a time when you don't need to function at your best for a few days.

The headaches, fatigue and depression should pass in a short time. Nobody should associate caffeine dependence or addiction which is relatively harmless with alcohol or nicotine dependence which have severe health consequences. Each year, misuse of alcohol causes more than 100,000 deaths in the United States and smoking causes more than 400,000 deaths.

You be the judge.

[Incidentally, whilst getting the pics for this story, the retailers whose sites I visited were pains in the butt – making images drop out, locking you into macromedia etc. Only wiki did the right thing. Say what you like – wiki is still the best.]