Perfect Poise, Perfect Life
Bring your body into balance and revolutionise your life
By Noel Kingsley
Publisher Hodder Mobius
AVAILABLE HERE
« Sun's up | Main | Digital or traditional »
Chocolate heaven
I haven't bought myself an Easter egg this year, not that I normally would but I decided not to even think of it again having just considered it for just a small minute. But I did buy one for my nearest and dearest, large enough that she would almost certainly feel guilty if she consumed it all without offering me at least a small piece. Why is it that chocolate is so.....more-ish?
As a young man I worked as a window display 'artist' for a large department store in Glasgow, Scotland. At this time of year one of the large shop windows would be devoted to Easter eggs and it was my job along with a couple of colleagues in the Display Department to create a large and attractive window display of the yummy brown stuff. We used large props in those days to create a thematic background, maybe even grass, hens, daffodils and all things Easter-ish to create the appropriate atmosphere. We also had several hundred Ester eggs that required to be brought from the Food Hall to the 5 metre shop window and we did this using shopping trolleys. So I would stand in the window while the others passed each egg in turn for me to position in the right place. With so many eggs and it being such a large window we became cavalier about it and they would toss each egg from the door of the window to me and I would catch them as best I could. Naturally we dropped a few. With any luck and skill we could drop quite a lot.... "One for the window display and one to 'us'!" When an Easter egg gets broken it's not much use for anything and certainly cannot be sold. So we had to dispose of them in the only suitable manner conceivable. We ate the lot. You can imagine how sick we felt at the end of the day. Thank goodness Easter only came once a year. I'm glad it still does.
Good quality dark chocolate is high in flavanols and can help prevent blood clotting, reduce blood pressure, and stave off heart disease and strokes. Flavanols are also to be found in red wine, tea, vegetables and fruit, but it's far more fun to get them by means of proper doses of chocolate, particularly if your tendencies verge on psychotic. Neuroactive alkaloids may contribute to our euphoric feelings too. So, science suggests that good quality chocolate is good for you! But there is a downside; the health benefits may be outweighed by the disadvantages as chocolate is high in sugar and fat. Still, this weekend is definitely the time to make sure we get an adequate and sufficient quantity. :-)
Happy Easter.
