Hooked On the Weightloss Shake

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.

I recently drove to San Francisco to attend a “chocolate festival.” My sister lives in Berkeley, she took me to the Scherfenberger chocolate factory the last time I visited, so I thought this would make a nice sequel.

I was expecting a sampling of fine world chocolates. Perhaps a master formula of belgian dark, or some nice Bolivian blends. The concept of the festival was that you paid $20 for a ticket book, then you hop from chocolate booth to chocolate booth, trading tickets for chocolate samples– better than a carnival!

My sister and I took the tram in on Saturday morning fully expecting the lines to be long for the best chocolates. We walked the final ten blocks to the festival, turned the corner and…

We faced a handful of stands set up in a semi-circle in an ill-traversed part of the tourist area near fisherman’s wharf. There were no dutch, no french, no Bolivian chocolates. There was Hershey’s, Lindt, and Nestles instead. The samples were bite sized junk candies, the kind you give kids for halloween. They sat in jars, the kind of jars you put candies in at halloween. Instead of chocolate connoisours displaying their finest, there were teen employees from the local candy marts.

But hey, at least there were no lines.

On the bright side, I did find a neat vitamin store in the area which led me to find some fun websites including a blog on omega 3 benefits.