Usually when a doctor starts talking about “healthy eating,” you groan inwardly and steel yourself to hearing about leafy green vegetables or other slimy, bitter, or tasteless items. Now, there’s hope that “healthy eating” won’t limit us to awful foodstuffs that must be choked down over the gag reflex.
A recent study, of more than 37,000 Swedes, indicates that eating chocolate may protect the brain from stroke. Study participants who ate the most chocolate were 17 percent less likely to have a stroke.
That study follows on other research that indicates that consuming chocolate may improve the health of your heart, that chocolate has antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-clotting effects, and that chocolate may reduce concentrations of “bad cholesterol” and lower blood pressure. And — as any true chocoholic knows — munching on some of that dark, sweet goodness is going to improve your mood, too. It’s a wonder drug!
Of course, researchers warn that you shouldn’t react to the study results by going on a four-Snickers-a-day diet; moderation remains important. Still, it’s nice to know that when Mother Nature decided on foods that would promote good health, she decided to give us a break now and then.
My mother had this down to a science. She had scouted all of the good hiding spots, ranked them in order of difficulty, and then assigned them to the kids in order of age. Jean therefore always got the easiest hiding place — usually somewhere pretty much out in plain sight, perhaps partially behind a chair. The bright pinks and greens and yellows and purples of the plastic eggs and marshmallow chicks and cellophane wrapping of the chocolate bunnies were like neon signs against the subdued decorations of our home. We’d hear Jean’s happy cry of discovery, chuckle at the lack of challenge, and redouble our efforts.
No one wanted to be the last person to find their basket, searching with increasing shame while Mom gave embarrassing “you’re getting warmer” hints and everyone else was gobbling their goodies. But some of those hiding spots were awfully tough — like inside the dryer, or under the top of the piano, or tucked away behind the coats in the front closet. When you finally found your basket, you felt a warm sense of achievement, and then tore into the goodies, scattering the fake plastic grass from the basket across the floor. The speckled eggs with a hard outer shell and malted milk inside were my favorites.
The market would be huge. What home entertainment area is complete without a device that allows you to create your own chocolate concoctions to nosh on as you watch your DVR’d movie and text your friends after updating your Facebook page?
There are two crucial decision points for the Halloween candy shopper — type of candy, and volume. Here’s a good rule of thumb on candies to avoid if you want your house to be respected in the ‘hood: don’t buy anything that appeared at the office coffee station the morning after Beggars’ Night last year. That means, in short, that you shouldn’t buy Jolly Ranchers, SweeTarts, or any kind of “healthy candy.” I also think suckers should be avoided, but that is primarily because our grandmother often terrorized UJ and me with “cautionary” stories about awful disasters that could befall innocent children. One of the stories was about a sweet-faced child who was running with a sucker in her mouth, tripped, fell face first, and had the white sucker stem smash through the roof of her mouth and impale her brain. I’m pretty sure Grandma used the phrase “doctors say she was dead as soon as she hit the floor” in recounting this horrible tale. (You’ve been warned!)
The volume aspect of the candy purchase decision often is ignored by over-confident souls who believe they can buy a bag of “fun-sized” Snickers, Milky Way, and Three Musketeers bars and be done with it. The volume issue poses its own hazards, however. Any house that runs out of candy and turns out the porch lights at mid-point on Beggars’ Night is by definition a loser house. So, you don’t want to run out — but at the same time you don’t want to be sitting in your house come 8 p.m. listening to the siren’s song of irresistible Reese’s Cups. At our house, we typically experience peaks and valleys in candy distribution. We start with full bowls and boldly encourage the early arriving kids to take multiple pieces, then panic after the early rush and turn into misers who harangue kids who try to sneak an extra piece — but then by the end of the night we’re basically hurling candy out the door at any random passing kid in order to get rid of the stuff.
No self-respecting candy lover would ever choose a raisin-based concoction. The fact that you can’t even think of a good raisin-oriented candy makes that point clear. So far as I can tell, in the history of mankind there have been only two candies that featured raisins: Chunky and Raisinets. Chunky, which was a thick little brick filled with raisins, nuts, and other debris, was one of the worst candies in history. Raisinets aren’t quite so bad — but if you had your choice between Goobers and Raisinets when you went to see a movie, wouldn’t you choose Goobers every time?
I recall there was one house on Orlando where an elderly couple lived. They always passed out homemade popcorn balls, wrapped in colorful cellophane and tied with ribbons. We had to go there because they were neighbors and Mom made us. We would take the popcorn balls, say thank you, toss them in our sacks, and then put them in the “bad candy” pile when we got home. I didn’t like popcorn balls at all. They were dry and dusty tasting, and nowhere near as succulent as, say, an Almond Joy.
