Chocolate Dessert With Breakfast
Recent studies have found out that integrating dessert into your well-balanced 600-calorie breakfast, that contains carbohydrates and proteins, allows people who are on a strict diet to shed unwanted pounds and maintain it in the long run.
Scientists categorized 193 clinically obese, non-diabetic adults into two groups. Such groups were provided with virtually the same low-carbohydrate diets containing 1,400 calories every day for females and 1,600 calories per day for males. Nevertheless, one group was given a low-carbohydrate 300-calorie breakfast, while the other group was provided with a 600-calorie breakfast that’s loaded with carbohydrates and protein, and it always came with a dessert.
In the first 16 weeks, losing weight didn’t have difference for the two groups. However, following the 32-week period, people who had a dessert, like cake or cookies, along with their breakfast were able to shed about 40 pounds more as compare to those who consumed the lighter, low-carbohydrate breakfast.
“What you eat for breakfast does not make you fat,” in accordance with professor Daniela Jakubowicz, part of the Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the Diabetes Unit at Wolfson Medical Center. She cited that breakfast gives energy you can use for the whole day. It can increase your metabolism and aid in the thinking processes. If a low-calorie diet restricts carbohydrate intake in the morning, your metabolism tends to crash. That said, the body will compensate which will eventually promote weight gain the moment you consume carbs, which is likely to happen since you’ll be starving come lunchtime. “Breakfast increases metabolism and decreases hunger,” she added.
Research has it that eating chocolate in the morning tends to maintain the levels of serotonin during the day, so you won’t feel depressed. The moment the chocolate you had in the morning crosses your mind, you would not recall the fact that it did make you happy, given that you had it when your level of serotonin was up. Thus, it can decrease your dependence on chocolate.
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Chocolate Bloom Is Not So Bad
Chocolates are normally smooth and glossy. Nevertheless, there is always a chance that you will have chocolates having white blemishes. These blemishes are known as chocolate bloom. It could actually be an indication that the chocolate was not properly stored.
Chocolate bloom is a sandy white film which is usually seen on chocolate’s surface. They may not look pretty at all, but they are usually not harmful. Bloom is the byproduct of the cocoa butter or sugar that has been drawn out to the surface.
There are two types of chocolate bloom: sugar bloom and fat bloom. Since chocolate has fat contents, a whitish gray substance would form on its surface when it gets exposed to warm temperatures for quite some time. The heat tends to pull out the cocoa butter out of the chocolate, and it causes the white pattern on the surface.
Another reason for it is humidity or cold temperatures. If you store chocolates in places with too much humidity or extremely cold ones like the fridge, and then you suddenly expose them to warm temperatures, a sugar bloom could take place. It happens because the surface of the chocolate will condense due to moisture. Sugar crystals tend to remain of the chocolate’s surface after evaporation of moisture, thus leaving a white coating.
Chocolate blooms aren’t really attractive, but it is still okay to eat it given that it is pure, and it does not contain any filling. A small chocolate bloom would not mess with the chocolaty taste, however the texture would not be as smooth.
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Why We Save The Best Chocolate Piece For Last
Ed O’Brien, a researcher in social psychology at the University of Michigan, came up with the paper. He claims that our choices depend on the moment and also personal taste. Also, an essential circumstance here is knowing the end of an experience.
Based on O’Brien’s concept, endings and last chances have a different allure. He said: “I think in everyday life we do have this expectation that we save the best for last.”
“When people are given awareness that something is about to end, they’re kind of motivated to make the most of that experience,” he added.
Does it even have something to do with little stuff like savoring the last piece of chocolate? To verify the idea, O’Brien together with other researchers called for 52 students on the University of Michigan campus and requested them to be involved in a taste test.
Such students tried out different kinds of Hershey’s Kisses from caramel to almond to dark chocolate. Following the taste test, these students were required to rate their most favorite.
“So we had a big bag of candy that was covered from the outside and you couldn’t see what was in it or how many [chocolates were there],” he said.
Some of the students did not have any clue that the fifth chocolate was going to be their last one. In such case, the participants claimed that the last piece of chocolate they were able to taste was their favorite about 22% of the time.
On the other hand, another group of student was clued in that the fifth piece was going to be their “last.” And O’Brien suggests that such awareness about how the entire experience was ending somehow forced them to savor the chocolate even better.
He said: “The majority of people [64 percent] chose it as their favorite even though we’d randomly distributed the flavors,” .
Many studies have shown that the last things are actually more powerful. Why, you may ask. They usually are the freshest in our thoughts, that’s why. And O’Brien believes that the last-is-best thinking might be applied to romance and relationships.
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Brief Exercise Can Curb Chocolate Cravings
A recent study indicated that a 15-minute walk can decrease your consumption of chocolate by half during working hours.
The research was done by the University of Exeter. It turned out that employees eat only half as much chocolate as they typically would after a brief exercise, even when under pressure.
The research made use of a simulated work environment and 78 regular chocolate-eaters, who did not have any chocolate in the past two days, took part.
Two groups were required to walk on a treadmill for 15 minutes and were then given work to complete at their designated desks. One group’s tasks were much easier and less stressful as compared to the other group.
The other two groups were asked to rest before finishing the same tasks as the first batch. Just like the preceding two groups, one group’s tasks were less challenging and less demanding. Chocolate was put in a bowl the whole time they were working so they can reach for it easily.
Those who had a brief walk on the treadmill consumed about 15g, those who had a rest had about 28g. 15g is equivalent to a ‘treat size’ or ‘fun size’ chocolate bar.
The challenge or difficulty of the task they had to do didn’t affect their consumption of chocolate. Therefore, stress had nothing to do with their sweet-tooth cravings.
Professor Adrian Taylor of the University of Exeter, lead researcher, said: “We know that snacking on high calorie foods, like chocolate, at work can become a mindless habit and can lead to weight gain over time,”.
“We often feel that these snacks give us an energy boost, or help us deal with the stress of our jobs, including boredom. People often find it difficult to cut down on their daily treats but this study shows that by taking a short walk, they are able to regulate their intake by half.”, he added.
True enough, exercise has incredible impacts on mood and energy levels that it is even deemed to have the potential in managing addictions.
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Chocolate’s Dark Side
During the medieval times, Christianity and chocolates didn’t mix. The Catholic Church used to bracket together chocolate and heretical behavior like blasphemy and even witchcraft. Does it even make sense? Read on.
I bet if you’re the type who digs medieval anything or maybe you’ve heard it at school at a certain point in your student life, you probably know about ‘Inquisition’. Never heard? Well then, let me shed some light on you about this dreadful thing. The Inquisition, Inquisitio Haereticae Pravitatis (inquiry on heretical perversity), gives a picture of the heavy-handedness of religion during that certain time, persecution, and prejudice. It was the fight against heresy by the Roman Catholic Church.
You may be wondering by now what exactly it is about chocolate that connects such a morbid even to our beloved chocolate. For starters, even downing a chocolaty beverage while in a particular event can be included in heretical behaviors. Truth be told and as morose as it may seem, there were even stories told in which Charles II, King of Spain, supposedly drank chocolate while observing Inquisition victims being slain.
Document and papers about Inquisition even acknowledged some actions of chocolate merchants that are involved in anti-Christian behavior, chocolate was even utilized in seduction and witchcraft. Those documents also showed how people went on betraying one another either by choice or by force.
A lot of individuals during those tough times were laid blame on for using chocolate in “non-Christian” acts. Some chocolatiers were even denounced for being observant Jews.
Thankfully, nowadays, chocolate is tantamount to anything cheery, joyful, and festive. It was quite a transition and a very disheartening story to hear. But it’s a thing of the past. All we can do now is be grateful that we can enjoy chocolate freely!
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Chocolate And Kissing
Passionate kisses always give a different level of excitement to the body, but so does eating chocolate. As a matter of fact, studies have shown that the feeling of having chocolate melt in your mouth is even better than those long intimate kisses.
In a recent experiment conducted, young lovers who were all in their 20s had their hearts and brain monitored. Then they had dark chocolates melt on their tongue without chewing, and kissed their partners the way they normally would.
The outcome was quite intriguing and surprising according to the researcher. They were aware of the fact that chocolate is a stimulant because of the stimulating substances it contains, but what they didn’t expect was the length of duration of the effects it had on the mind.
The researchers also compared the resting heart rates of the participants with their heart rates when they had the chocolate and kissing tests. Turns out, even the most intimate and passionate kiss didn’t compare to the buzz that chocolate can give. At the point where chocolate was melting on the tongue, the entire regions of the brain were stimulated more intensely and the effects lasted even longer than what they got from kissing. The chocolate chunks also supposedly made the heart rate go higher.
And even though women are known to have more liking towards chocolate and also more romantic in nature, both sexes yielded the same results. The chocolate was able to provide a long-lasting body and brain buzz which lasted four times as long as kissing.
Like I said, chocolate contains several highly-stimulating substances that give a natural buzz, such as theobromine, caffeine, and phenylethylamine which is elicited when we are in love.
The said experiment used a 60% cocoa dark chocolate. A spokeswoman for the chocolate makers said: “You’d think people would be shy about kissing in a laboratory, but that wasn’t the case at all. We’re not talking about a quick peck here.”
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Brownie Tidbits
We all have a soft spot for brownies. So here are some interesting information about it.
The first brownie was believed to be made in America. Some suggest and claim that it was originally from New England at the beginning of the 20th century.
Despite its being cake-like and being baked in a cake pan, brownies are considered as bar cookies instead of a cake.
Brownies can either be “cake-style” or “fudge-style”. Cake-style is that with the consistency of a cake, but with a thicker consistency. While, fudge-style is more like, yes, fudge than cake. It is the richer, denser, and creamier version of the brownie. The style of brownie is determined by the ratio of flour to chocolate and/or cocoa.
It goes without saying that brownie got its name from its dark brown color. But as expected, the origin of the “brownie” is covered in myth and stories that make all of us wonder which one is the real deal. One of the stories told is that a chef accidentally added melted chocolate to the batch of biscuits he was baking. Another one claims that a cook was baking a cake but had inadequate amounts of flour but baked it anyway, thus, making a brownie.
However, the most famous legend states that a housewife in Bangor, Maine, who was making a chocolate cake, forgot to add baking powder. When the cake didn’t rise, she just cut it and served pieces of the flat cake.
On the other hand, some state that the first known published recipe appeared in the Sears, Roebuck Catalogue in 1897, but that was a recipe for a molasses candy only called brownies. Nowadays, brownies are baked with either cocoa or melted chocolate or a combination of both.
Although the first few brownie recipes were published and modification to the recipe started in the beginning of the 20th century, it wasn’t until the 1920s that brownies became a well-loved treat in the department of baked chocolate goods. It still holds true today.
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