Chocolate and Beyond

RAWR Easter eggs - quite possibly the best chocolate ever? Dairy-free too!

Oh my. If there was anything I needed to cheer me up from my spluttering sick-bed (I'm currently ill with a chest infection), it was the delivery of a box of four solid raw chocolate Easter eggs sent to me yesterday courtesy of RAWR. I can honestly say, I've never tasted anything quite like these eggs before - it is highly likely to be the best chocolate experience I've ever had.

This is the first time I've ever tried raw chocolate, and for the uninitiated, that means chocolate that is made from completely uncooked ingredients (preventing loss of nutrients, which unprocessed choc contains - there is info on RAWR's website). I have to say - WOW!

Firstly, they come delightfully packaged in a little blue recycled egg-box tied up in yellow ribbon, a treat for the eyes. Then the four eggs inside - each one a good solid 70g - are individually wrapped to signify their different flavours - 'Purity' (organic dark choc with crunchy cacao nibs), 'Zest' (organic orange choc), 'After Dinner' (organic mint choc) and '80% Intensity' (organic 80% cocoa choc).

The chocolate just kind of crumbles in your mouth - with the flavour slowly melting into your taste buds. I nibbled on a bit of every single egg at first, then decided to spend a while eating a half of 'Purity'. The chocolate was really like no other, and the flavours were intense without being overpowering. And you could actually properly taste the chocolate! It felt a million miles away from the taste of a commercial chocolate bar (in fact, eating the RAWR eggs felt positively healthy!).

Having tried all the eggs, my favourite was Zest (which I ate a full half of after my peanut butter on toast this morning). I've always been a fan of orange chocolate - though the idea of turning to a commercial brand ever again now has departed. Commerical chocolate is heated and packed with sugar, milk fat, and crap (let's be blunt), whereas this chocolate is organic, hand-made and naturally sweetened without refined sugar. It's gluten-free, and oh yes, dairy-free too. I've tried vegan chocolate before and have been disappointed, but the RAWR eggs were nothing like. Guilt-free, while delicious.

A box of four eggs costs £8.95. That's not a lot of money - and there IS a lot of chocolate in a box at 280g in total. I had to put the eggs away to keep mindful of not overeating! Plus, orders over £5 from the RAWR website have free delivery - so they really are a yummy bargain.

10% discount on RAWR orders for Chocolate and Beyond readers!

I just need to say that, after I tasted this chocolate, I specifically went to RAWR and asked if they would provide a discount for readers of my site. That's because I really was so impressed with it, I want everyone to have a taste themselves!

So, RAWR have kindly offered a very reasonable 10% discount off website orders. Just use the code BEYOND10 which you can add in My Cart on www.rawrchoc.com after making your order.

My suggestion is order a box for everyone you normally buy Easter eggs for, plus a box for yourself too - because if you order for others and not for you, you'll be annoyed when you find out how utterly delectable they are!

At last! Some leafy green my son will eat!

As a health journalist I'm incredibly aware of the value of green, leafy vegetables in my diet, yet as a parent, I'm extremely aware of the lack of them in my teenage son's diet! But now I have discovered, in Asda's Extra Special range (of all places), young pea shoots. And while my 16 year doesn't think they are the best thing since being free to head into Manchester on his own, he will eat them as part of meal.

I suppose I can't complain or worry too much, he is a big fan of avocado, which is probably one of the best green growing things you can eat. But other than that, green peppers, cabbage, broccoli, rocket, watercress and so on, are all off the menu.

Slimming teas feature on iVillage

I thought readers of Chocolate and Beyond may like to read a feature that I recently wrote for iVillage.co.uk on slimming teas. It is always interesting to put together an article like this now that I'm a non-dieter, especially as previously, I'd have been really hoping that I'd have struck gold with a miracle weight loss solution while sipping all those teas! Of course, now I'm much more sensible and I knew straight away I wasn't going to fall for the sell.

Mood Food Company

There is now a website where you can shop for foods according to which mood you want to induce! The MoodFood Company has information about which foods are likely to help in nurturing different states of mind, and has a shop where you can buy a variety of natural and organic produce.

I feel quite strongly that a diet can have a huge impact on your emotional and mental health, and a long time ago I wrote an article (ironically, for a diet magazine, this was before I re-educated myself on the perils of dieting!) on eating mood food. I don't believe that you can single out certain foods to help certain moods, but I do think that aiming for overall balance and an inclusion of certain food groups can very much help maintain stable mental health.

Fish-pie for breakfast and now more cooking

I had some left-over home-made fish pie for breakfast this morning (oh yum, I hear you say!). I'd made it all myself last night, with halibut, salmon and prawns.

I have to add, the fish I got cheap because it was Asda 'Whoops' (reduced because it was at its sell-by date, though I'm not quite sure of why they call it 'Whoops': Whoops, we made a huge mistake in our stock ordering? Whoops, if you don't eat this now it's going to be rancid in the morning? Whoops, we're losing money here?).

Anyhow, along with some fried leeks, a bit of red pepper and some mashed new potatoes, then a thick layer of cheese on top as the 'pie crust', I cooked up a delicious and nutritious homely meal for my son and I (though he wasn't as enthralled; "It's too colourful" he said) and didn't I feel smug?

Top Tips for Dieting...???

Just thought I'd have a nosy on videojug - one of my favourite sites - to see what they say about diets.

The best film surprisingly is their fabulously deceptive Top Tips for Dieting, because the first tip on it is to not go on a diet, but to change your diet. Whilst the whole video doesn't necessarily follow the principles of intuitive eating, it is still a great move forward for people who want to beak the diet cycle; especially those who are looking for a new diet and will no doubt click on to a film that offers top tips for dieting.

Some people are not ready to give up dieting, and while intuitive eaters do not see any diet as the way forward, there are of course those diets which are more nutritionally sound, and those which are not. So, I found this little film What Makes A Fad Diet A Fad Diet interesting and useful for those who would like to learn more about extreme dieting.

If you let it, your body knows...

Every single day I languish in the fact that I can eat whatever I want, and at whichever meal time. There are no rules to my eating patterns, except the ones that aren't really rules, but are the things I've found I like to do that seem to suit me best - probably because they suit the needs of my body nutritionally.

I still haven't got off my sausage roll (are you laughing at the minor pun? I do hope not - hehe) and at the moment, I don't feel I can truly start the day without sausages for breakfast. My morning meals tend to be a high-fat, high-protein and high-carbohydrate affair - in fact, everything your body needs to begin its day!

Cooking by the campfire

Can you eat well while camping? I'm actually going to be spending a couple of nights in a tent this weekend - which for a girl who thinks GHD stands for God Help the Demiwave and sees straighteners as essential as oxygen itself, then I'm not quite sure how I will survive.

But the question of what to take to eat with no camping gas stove - being new to this game - is becoming something of a conundrum. Won't fresh salad stuff just turn limp and nasty? Won't my favourite - cheese - go sweaty and greasy? And how on earth am I going to consume substantial amounts of tea to keep me going? Talk about unprepared.

Fussy eater or food phobic?

I thought some of the Chocolate and Beyond readers would be interested in having a look at this feature on fussy eaters and food phobics that I recently had published on www.iVillage.co.uk (and which I've linked here to my new blog, Clear as Quartz).

It was a good one to write, especially as I'm one of the least fussy eaters in the world! Don't get me wrong, I dislike eating too much junk food and I do like my meals to be real and nutritious (so I'm only 'fussy' in terms of having a preference for good quality food) but other than that, I'll eat whatever you put in front of me!

Healthy Eating and Depression (a new booklet) and other resources

As I've been discussing the impact of diet on mental health in my recent posts, it is apt that the Mental Health Foundation have just brought out a new booklet called Healthy Eating and Depression.

It's free to download off the site, so might be worth having a look at if you are experiencing depression without success in treating it, and would like to look at whether dietary factors might be involved.

If you're interested in the role of food over mood, then you should check out the Food and Mood Organisation which Amanda Greary is the founder of.