Tag Archives: chocolate

Exit Guilt; Enter Chocolate!


Good morning Everyone!

Cocoa pods ripening on the Cacoa tree

Cocoa pods ripening on the Cacao tree

I have the most wonderful, glorious news to share this morning – chocolate is, in fact, a vegetable!

Applause

From Print Shop Professional 2.0

How did I make this discovery?  A combination of  illogic, basic horticultural facts and culinary methods.  The basic ingredient in chocolate is the cocoa bean!  Any food based on a vegetable such as a bean must fall into the vegetable department.  (Technically, the cocoa bean originates in a fruit, since it grows in a pod along with many siblings, but then, tomato is a fruit, and it is considered a vegetable when we eat it.  I don’t think we should discriminate against the cocoa bean by elevating the tomato over it, do you?)

Linnaeus

Linnaeus, who invented the means of classifying various organisms. This picture was painted just after he discovered that chocolate was a vegetable.

It takes approximately 300 to 600 cocoa beans to make 2.2 pounds of chocolate, so logic would dictate that each mouthful of the wonderful stuff is chock full of the same delicious vitamins that one receives from other beans and assorted vegetables as well.

Cocoa Beans in the Cacoa pod

Cocoa Beans in the Cacao pod

Exit guilt; enter chocolate….

My next question – since it contains chocolate, eggs, flour and often milk, does this make chocolate cake a super food?  Just wondering!

Chocolate Cake

Chocolate Cake

Have a great weekend!

Nancy

Of Green Beans and Chocolate


Good morning Everyone!

Double Stuf Oreo Package

As Mark was leaving this morning, he remarked that perhaps it would be a good idea to move the Double Stuf Oreo bag off of the coffee table in the den since “Even a blind dog can find an Oreo now and then.”  (He was speaking both figuratively and literally; as well-behaved and blind as she is, I suspect that Tyra, when provided with a bag of Oreos just barely within her reach and a full 12 hour day within which to work on it, would figure out a way to reach the tantalizing treats.)

In the process of returning the Oreos back to their safe haven in the pantry, I also noticed the various canned food items arrayed on the shelves in the pantry, including the canned, French Style green beans.

Yucky!  From Print Shop Professional 2.0

Before I go any further, I have a confession to make – I truly hate most kinds of cooked vegetables.  Their unpleasant taste wrinkles my face in disgust just thinking about them.  It is the rare cooked vegetable that I come across that does not taste bitter to me.  (Salad stuff including various kinds of lettuce and tomato and carrots, etc. I do like.)  On the other hand, it is the rare chocolate flavored anything that I don’t like, and then it is usually because someone decided to taint the pure chocolate taste with coconut.  I have to force myself to eat the one, and restrain myself when it comes to the other.

computer files

But, if you’ll stop and think a minute, somewhere in my brain and nerve responses, I have filed away what chocolate tastes like and what green beans taste like.  Somehow, some way, it should be possible to switch the two files, just like you could in a computer, and place the “chocolate” taste under vegetables and the “vegetable” taste under chocolate.  Imagine a world where I could “indulge” myself on cooked carrots, cabbage and green beans, and consistently turn my nose up at Hershey’s, Reese’s and Oreos!

Riches

Just imagine the riches I could rake in by selling my secret to the rest of those in America who would also like to lose weight – why, I might even be able to challenge Bill Gates or Warren Buffet on the list of the top wealthiest individuals!   I might even get to star in an infomercial or two of my own, and what a hoot that would be.

Battling On

Bravely Battling On

Until that day, I will bravely battle on, counting out green beans singly as I place them on my plate in an attempt to make sure I eat the very minimum necessary to come close to the recommended daily requirements (I don’t have to be right up there; what else are multi-vitamins for?)

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

The Many Dilemmas of Candy Season


Good morning Everyone!

Halloween marks the official start of  “Candy Season.”  Candy Season runs from October 31 (Halloween) until Easter Sunday every year, and I have a love/hate relationship with it.

Granted, I like candy (at least chocolate candy) as much as the next person, but for the five or six months between Halloween and Easter  we are inundated with it.  It seems to be a required part of almost every celebration during the next five or six months – except for Thanksgiving, but even then, pie or cake of some kind is required.

Certain ethical questions impose themselves upon the arrival of Candy Season – is it really evil to go through your child’s Halloween candy and pick out all of the Three Musketeers and Hershey bars and eat them before she can?  Surely it can’t be that bad!  Besides, what else would I do with the extra hour between her bedtime and mine?  Does Kayla really need the entire chocolate Santa that appeared in her stocking or chocolate bunny that appeared in her Easter basket?  Aren’t I really doing her a favor, saving her all those extra calories and at least one sugar rush if I go ahead and eat at least part of it?

There is an internal struggle to Candy Season as well.  This conversation occurs more often than I would care to admit.

Sweet Tooth Self:  Did you know there is candy in the house?

Healthy Self:  You don’t need candy.  Have an apple.

Sweet Tooth Self:  Did you know there is candy in the house?

Healthy Self:  Well, it’s not chocolate; you know you don’t like any of those other kinds of candy.  Have an apple.

Sweet Tooth Self:  There is to chocolate.  I buried it in the bottom of the candy jar so Kayla and Mark wouldn’t find it.

Healthy Self:  That was last month, and you have pretty well demolished all of that chocolate you put back.  Besides, they’re getting suspicious – it’s hard for them to miss the fact that they haven’t been able to find any chocolate since before Halloween.  Have an apple.

Sweet Tooth Self:  I’ll show you!  (Proceeds to candy dish).  See, I told you there was a mini-Snickers bar left in there!

Healthy Self:  Show off!  Have an apple.

Sweet Tooth Self:  But that’s a mini-Snickers bar!

Healthy Self:  Well, we are supposed to have nuts as part of a healthy diet….

Sweet Tooth Self:  I told you!

Healthy Self:  Eat it quickly.  Then we’ll give Kayla the apple.  We want to keep her  healthy, after all!

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy