CHOCOLATE - New Age Medicine It seems that everything old is new again. Chocolate (the dark kind) has come back into favour in light of modern research methods. If it hadn’t been for science, we would still be thinking that chocolate is nothing but a decadent treat, meant to be scarfed down while watching soap operas or leaning over a kitchen sink late at night. New double blind, controlled studies have determined once and for all that the flavonoids in good quality dark chocolate make it an excellent antioxidant and immune system booster. Thank God for scientists! We’ve always known in the backs of our minds that chocolate was used throughout history to cure all manner of garden variety ills including mental disfunction, stress, extreme fatigue, intestinal problems and even kidney and blood disturbances. In fact, the list in herbal pharmacopoeia from the early 1900s listed 100 anecdotal remedies with the use of chocolate! The only problem that I can see with indulging nowadays is the additions and deletions. A milk chocolate bar contains many calories and bad fats, sugars and things that will stick to your arteries and is not to be recommended. We must be very diligent in ferreting out the proper types of chocolate. White chocolate will not do, nor will carob, and, as I mentioned, milk chocolate’s value is borderline at best. I’m sure we’ve all heard of Bernard Callebaut, the famous Belgian chocolatier…well his chocolate is excellent as is the more expensive name brand chunk. So, if you have any say in the matter today on Valentine´s Day, encourage your honey to go for the extra special truffles (which pack a double whammy.) Who knows, it may also increase libido, another of the anecdotal uses... Chocolate has been known to soothe the savage breast of a PMSing woman and those with stress problems related to rearing active children or simply leading crazy hectic lives. Whenever things go wrong, reach into the medicine cabinet and eat a no-guilt dark chocolate. The trick is to eat no more than one or two because even these little nuggets have fat in them, although the fat from cocoa beans are not atherosclerotic. They do not clog arteries like trans fats do. However, they can put on pounds. So who needs anti-depressants to maintain the busy lifestyles that we all seem to be caught up in? In fact, the News today pointed out that about half a dozen brands of anti-depressants have been found (yay! again to those hard-working scientists and researchers) to be carcinogenic. Just watch, there will be a huge hue and cry about this abominable situation where women who took the drugs for years on end are being diagnosed with a certain form of breast cancer. So let us stick to our dark chocolate and be smug in the fact that we’re treating and healing ourselves naturally! If you haven’t had your chocolate fix today yet, why not whip up a batch of these Yummy Truffles. 1 cup of good quality chopped dark chocolate ¼ c. good quality dark cocoa ½ c. heavy cream (or substitue ¼ c. organic eggnog or vanilla soymilk) ¼ c. honey 2 tbsp. Brandy or flavouring 1 tbsp. Butter ------------------ For coating: 1/4c. icing sugar 1/8c cocoa powder In the top of a double boiler (or a smaller pot set inside a larger one with water) place all ingredients on medium heat. You can heat the water to boiling before adding ingredients to empty top pot. Stir with a wire whisk from time to time to aid the melting. If it seems too thin (using soymilk will thin it) add another ¼ c. cocoa powder. As soon as the mixture has no lumps left, remove from heat and place top pot in a bowl of ice and water to cool quickly. Beat immediately with a hand mixer for 4/5 minutes to fluff up. Form spoonfuls into round balls with hands or just leave in spoon shape to avoid overhandling. Place on cookie sheet and place in refrigerator for several hours. Toss truffles to coat in a plastic bag into which you’ve put 1/4c icing sugar and 1/8c. cocoa powder. Store in air-tight plastic bag in medicine cabinet until needed….just kidding. Eat several right away and then one a day as the doctor ordered. Back to the Writing Index