Hooked On the Weightloss Shake

Mole sauce is truly wonderful. It’s an ideal incorporation of cocoa into savory cuisine.

The only tricky thing about mole, is that there are so many different variations, it’s hard to pin down the mediocre from the excellent.

The first way to tell good mole is the sweetness. The best mole shouldn’t be sweet at all, the worst mole basically tastes like chocolate sauce.

Outside of sweetness, you’re looking for a blend between the raw cocoa taste–the bitterness–with the salty/spicy taste of the other peppers and chiles used in the sauce or the dish. Cocoa complements hot pepper, but it should not overpower the mexican flavor.

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That’s right, put some cocoa in your chili. It’s actually done quite often, as weird as it sounds.

The mexicans call it “mole” though technically mole sauce is a little more involved than simply pouring some chocolate on an enchilada.

It’s not sweet, it’s the cocoa flavor you’re going for. One of the problems with many chilies is the over saltiness of the end product. There’s not too much salt in a tomatillo, or a tomato. Not too much salt in serrano peppers, or jalapenos. But add them all together and you’ve got one extremely salty bowl.

Most people counter the salty acidic taste with a teaspoon of sugar. This is a simple fix, and certainly works, but add a teaspoon of cocoa to that sugar and you’ve got a whole new enriching flavor to your chili. I certainly recommend it!

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In general, I’m not a fan of sugar free chocolate. I like my chocolate as dark as possilbe, but even the potent cocoa purest needs a little sweetness to counter the bitter.

Actually, I don’t even care that much for sugar. I’ve done raw cocoa before (and of course there’s plenty of ways to do chocolate in food without any sugar at all), but what particularly disturbs me is FAKE SUGAR.

I’ve ready plenty of nonsense about toxins and harmful additives and the cancer (oh no!) causing effects of splenda and artificial sweetner. That doesn’t bother me at all. If I worried about everything that caused cancer, life wouldn’t be much fun, would it?

The real problem with artificial sweetners is the taste! Or more specifically, the aftertaste. Once you develop a palat for cocoa (or wine, or cheese, whatever your connnoisuers choice) you notice flavors, your tongue (actually, your nose, olefactory, but that’s for another post) picks up subtle differences. Adding artificial sweetners to fine chocolate is like sending a wrecking ball through a glass palace. Better put, it’s like creating a beautiful interior design for a house, careful selecting the furniture and the hangings, remodeling rooms, and combing over angles and placement. Then painting everything bright orange.

Plain and simple, artificial sweetners mask and absorb the subtle qualities of good chocolate. They’re fine if you’re going for a sweet fix, but if you are going for epicurean delight, buy the real thing.

As I’ve browsed the internet for other health magazines, I’ve noticed a washboard abs trend. I’ve also discovered some information on life extension and primal nutrition. And if that wasn’t enough, take a look at the best multivitamin.

I still don’t know where to put my foot down with this whole Nestle’s Quick business.

Officially, I’m a chocolate connoissuer, the darker the purer, straight from the cocoa bean and all that jazz.

But I do have a sweet spot (no pun intended) for Nestle quick.

I don’t support the Nestle brand of chocolate in any way. They water down their chocolate. They have way too much lecithin in their formula (Lecithin is the unpotable substance used to thicken up milk chocolate, it gives it that “waxy” texture). And most importantly, the chocolate just doesn’t taste good.

But the Nestle Quick I actually do like. It isn’t exactly chocolate milk. It’s more like chocolate colored sweetened condensed milk, but I’ve been a sucker for sweetened condensed.

So, I give Nestle the thumbs up on their fake chocolate milk. But you’ll never see me compliment anything else they make.
Hey, Nestle Quick may not be the best multivitamins, but at least it tastes better than a weight loss shake.

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine introduced my to A chocolate calcium supplement. The supplement acted as a weak multivitamin as well.

Unfortunately, it contained 40 calories per chew! That’s more calories than the equivalent amount of a candy bar.

This is a tricky dilemna, is this chocolate vitamin healthy or unhealthy. It certainly offers no more benefits than the average calcium supplement or multivitamin, yet it has sugar and calories. In that regard it is unhealthy. But it does offer quite a bit more nutrition than, for instance, a Snickers bar. I guess it’s all relative.

In other news, I’ve been doing a lot of web browsing for public documents. I have a recent fascination with people searching online, looking up old friends or relatives I never knew I had. I’ve only found a few good people search engines. Probably the best one is called “Public Records Now.” It’s a simple service, and it doesn’t eat a way at your pocket book, the way actual public records search fees might if you had a clerk down at city hall do your searching for you.

I can’t recommend chocolate vitamins, but I definitely recommend people search engines.

Even chocoholics must go without occasionally.

A fast from chocolate is a rare thing for me, but it’s that time in my schedule when I must work off the pudginess I’ve developed over a year of eating chocolate and that time is now. So, I bid farewell to my dark antioxidant dreams and cocoa supplement purity, and I replace it all with tuna fish and vinegar.

Disgusting, I know, tuna fish and vinegar. But I’m going on a real health kick here, loading myself up with omega 3 vitamins and essential minerals, all while reducing my daily calorie intake. I’ve started an exercise program as well. Basically just aerobics with music, but I’m adding some weight training to the regiment as well.

So, I apologize that this post (and possibly the next few) are a bit sparse, but I’m just trying to not focus on chocolate right now, because I know if I start thinking about it and talking about it, I’ll soon start eating it, and that’s not good for anyone’s sake (least of all my wife, who wants a fit sexy husband, even at 63!).

In parting, I suggest you head on over to the vitamin shop like I did. They’ve got some great stuff on omega 3 capsules, which aren’t as tasty as good old cocoa, but at least you’ll be getting nutritious.

I’m not much for junk food candy bars. It’s a rather brutish way to get a chocolate fix. But I do like to keep up with what the major chocolate companies are doing. I always take an interest in Hershey’s new endeavors, or what candy or drink Nestle has altered to market as their own.

Well, it seems the manufacturers are finally catching on.

More and more these days I notice classic candy bars are coming in “Dark Chocolate” flavors. Milky Way, Twix, Kit Kat, and even the original Snickers bar all come in dark varieties. Of course, the Snickers bar isn’t a chocolate bar as much as a nouget and peanut bar coated in a thin layer of chocolate. Nevertheless, this new “dark trend” is certainly a step in the right direction.

And finally, I found several new sites, many a good health blog, and even something about the damage control master formula. Also, if you’re looking for how to deal with stress, this site should help you out.

When I first began with my chocolate obsession, I think many boxes of Godiva chocolates were involved. I had to drive thirty miles to get to the store, but there was a cute sales woman, and they always had at least one free sample. For a couple years I swore by Godiva.

Now I can barely eat them. Once your pallet tunes in with the intricate flavors of cocoa, it’s hard not to see Godiva as the Nestle Crunch of the truffle world. Admittedly there’s much worse out there, and it’s the sentiment that counts, but please don’t buy me Godiva.

I went into a Godiva store the other day just to make sure I was correct. I bought a sample of 8. I pure dark chocolate truffle, one of the holiday specials (egg nog I believe, bad mistake), a caramel, and a few others. The caramel was downright mediocre. The temperature at which the chocolates had been made, caused enough seperation between shell and filling to leave a chalky taste in my mouth. Now, I’m sure these chocolates are very fine and worth the money to many people, but all in all, I’d rather eat fish.

Actually, I really WOULD rather eat fish. Fish oil is one of the best suppements out there (not including the essentials, we’re talking about vitamins now). Omega 3 benefits include everything from brain to heart health. There’s enough omega 3 benefits in one fish to beat the pants off the antioxidants of a whole box of chocolates (unfortunately). I’d also suggest the damage control master formula as a Christmas gift while we’re at it. You can never have too much health.

If you’ve read my previous entries, you’ve probably noticed that I’m something of a chocoholic (cocoa connosoier is the polite term). I eat chocolate almost every day of my life. It’s what I do, it’s what I like. Some people watch television, I taste chocolate.

I have one strict acception, though.

I never eat chocolate on Thanksgiving.

Many people believe this is weird. Thanksgiving is the feasting holiday, it is all about eating, and why not eat the thing you love most?

I’ll tell you why: Eating chocolate is a ritual for me. I cleanse my palate beforehand. I take a moment to relax. I often research the chocolate I’m about to try. Eating the actual bar is the fieldwork of passionate research for me, I have never considered my cocoa affinity to be part of feastery.

Thanksgiving, on the other hand, is all about quantity. It is about the plenty, not the acute. The food may be good, but what’s important is that it is en masse and that we eat as much and as often as our neighbors and family. It is a day when gorging is okay. The rest of the year, such a feast might be repulsive, but not when we are giving thanks for….well for being alive I guess, maybe for living in such times when we can afford such feasts and such friendly company. But I refuse to associate my taste for chocolate with such overabundant and joyous gluttany. Besides, I’ve got 364 other days for cocoa, I’ll live without for just one day.

If you’re planning on filling your belly for Thanksgiving, you might want to get a head start on being healthy beforehand, so take a look at these links as somewhere to begin. The vitamin shop is another health blog, and damage control master formula is a new squidoo page about a multivitamin.

Sorry to sound like a redundant old fart, but I just can’t emphasize enough how great chocolate is as an antioxidant. It is mayhap the best antioxidant out there if you consider taste important in terms of getting those antioxidizing nutrients.

And as if chocolate weren’t good enough already, recent studies have shown that chocolate includes a chemical called phenyletylamine, which increases seratonin levels to the brain (i.e. it makes you happy). Finally a chemical way to explain what everyone already knows…chocolate makes you smile!

And finally, this week I’d like to talk a bit about smell. As you may know, there are only four taste buds, while there are thousands of olefactory receptors. This means, when we eat, most of what we are tasting actually comes from what we smell.

Smell is important with any food, and the cocoa bean has as very distinctive smell. Dark chocolate can have even a sour, pungeant odor, but most peoples’ receptors still read this as a pleasant smell.

The danger with smell and chocolate is that most chocolate (especially lighter milk chocolates) absorbs smell. This doesn’t affect the nutritional value of the chocolate, but absorbed smells can ruin the taste. You can work this aspect of chocolate in your favor, so here are a few rules to odorize your chocolate…

1) Don’t store chocolate in the bathroom! Duh. But the same goes for storing it near the washing machine or dishwasher, you don’t want detergent odor in your cocoa.

2) Be wary of the fridge/vegetable combo. Smell your fridge before you store chocolate in it. Many people overcrowd their fridges, leading to rotting vegetables produce at the back of the fridge which leads to a faint unpleasant odor, that is unnoticeable for the most part, but can seap into a good chocolate bar and ruin all that refined flavor.

3) Experiment with the spice rack. Many people store their chocolate on the spice rack, and this can actually add a variety of wonderful subtle tones to the flavor, but there are certain spices to steer clear of. Cinnamon is a great spice and can enhance cocoa flavor, but too much cinnamon can overpower other natural odors contained within the chocolate. A good rule of thumb is, the higher quality the chocolate, the less cinnamon to use in recipes, and the same goes for storing your chocolate near cinnamon. Some other fun spices to store chocolate with are cardamom, mint, chili powder, and for the bold…pipe tobacco!

4) Use flowers. I’ve tried this, and it adds wonderful light tones to a marzipan chocolate. Store the chocolate with rose petals or lavender. Any flower will work, but rose absorbs a bit better. You will actually be able to taste the flower in the chocolate. I find it to be exotic and wonderful.

So, that’s my basic guide to odorizing your chocolate. I should also mention a how to deal with stress website I’ve found recently. It’s pretty good stuff. Check it out when you’re not eating chocolate!