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Chocofast

Chocofast over!

dav

So it’s been a month, without chocolate, sweets or sugary treats. OK, I had one penguin bar when I gave blood, and some honey with some whiskey one evening, #manflu.

Generally, we have gone without the routine habitual chocolate fest with the 9pm tv, without the chocolate biscuits in the pack-up, without lemonade etc, without honey on the muesli, without the chocolates passed around at work, at choir, at friends.

Not sure what the experience has proved. It [extra sugary-fat] is perhaps not needed. Perhaps the sugar hit can be got from other more organic things. fruit, music, imagination, people… the burst of a cherry tomato or a grape can be a good substitute for fatty sugary slab. Banana facts… BANANA

Yes, a little of what you fancy does you good, in moderation. Yes, as you can see, tonight we’ve {the wife and I} gorged on a Terry’s CO (there’s a mega-stash left from Christmas). To be honest, to quote the wife, “I feel a bit sick”, I agree with her. Chocolate is one thing, brown sugary fat with favouring is another.

I fully intend to try and limit the habitually unnecessary sweet stuff. Our culture really does have sugar at its heart. Where your treasure is, there is your heart also. It’s there at every turn, often invisibly innocent, as a default feel-good substance.

As I say, perhaps we might appreciate stuff better without the feel-good lens of sugar, then again perhaps we may not.

I’m off for a Boost.

Next for the withdrawal treatment … cheese?

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Read it! …it’s better than chocolate!

I recently created these tasty bookmark designs for the Bookmark People – feel good without the guilt!

ChocBookmarksWithBooks

If you don’t do dancing or swimming then pop to the library!

“A significant association was also found between frequent library use and reported wellbeing.” So says the DCMS studyQuantifying and Valuing the Wellbeing Impacts of Culture and Sport.

It found that you’re better off visiting the library than going to the gym!

Ranking different leisure activities and their ’worth’ to the people who take part in them, it finds that going to the library is beneficially valued at £1,359/year! It finds fitness activities, such as going to the gym, are actually associated with people being unhappier than they would otherwise be!?
ReadingBetterThanChocIt lists: Value of engagement in culture and sports
(per person/per month)
Dancing £139
Swimming £136
Visit libraries frequently £113
Team sports £94
Arts and Crafts £85
Seeing Plays £83
Individual sports £69
Music Concerts £62

So, forget that chocolate bar and that sweaty gym pass and pop down to your library! Be well!

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Crafty eggs in eggs – How do you like yours?!

Nifty little idea what i did see – it’s not my idea.

  • Wool
  • Balloons
  • PVA glue/water
  • mini choc eggs in foil

Put eggs in balloons. Blow up balloons to large egg-size.
Put wool in PVA/water mixture.
Wrap balloons in wool. Wrap from all angles.
Leave to set overnight – (ooops – not on the radiator cos there choc in them there eggs!)

Tricky bit: gently push majority of balloon away from wool before popping balloon. If you don’t then the deflating balloon pulls the wool in. Then most of balloon’s pushed away from wool, with a blade and tweezers, pop balloon and pull it away and out of the delicate wool egg lattice. It will come out in bits and needs patience and a steady hand

Voila – mini choc eggs in woollen egg lattice.

Incidentally I like real eggs!

i – scrambled, ii – poached, ii – boiled. But not with a hard yolk.

How do you like yours!?

These figures are for a medium egg of approximately 58gm fresh weight.
Source Royal Society of Chemistry/MAFF 1991, The Composition of foods (5th Edition). 

Nutritional analysis without shell

Weight     51.6g
Water     38.8g
Energy     316/76 kjoules/k cal
Protein     6.5g
Carbohydrate     trace
Fat     5.6g
Inc Sat Fatty acids     1.6g
Monounsaturated F.a.     2.4g
Dietary Fibre     none

Minerals and Trace Elements

Sodium     72mg
Potassium     67mg
Calcium     29mg
Phosphorus     103mg
Magnesium     6.2mg
Iron     1mg
Zinc     0.7mg
Copper     0.04mg
Iodine     27mg
Chlorine     83mg
Sulphur     93mg
Selenium     6mg

Vitamins

Vitamin A     98mg
Vitamin D     0.9mg
Vitamin E     0.57mg
Vitamin C     none
Thiamine B1     0.05mg
Riboflavin B2     0.24mg
Niacin     1.94mg
Vitamin B6     0.06mg
Folate     26mg
Vitamin B12     1.3mg
Biotin     10mg
Pantothenic Acid     0.91mg