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Chocolate Love

Jul. 04, 2009

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Does it ever amuse you, how great our desire (as a society) is to legitimize all our vices?  For example, almost every week there’s a news headline that announces how wine, coffee or tea are so good for our health.  And we lap it up quite happily.

While Ayurveda views alcohol as a “super-sweet” something we can talk about another time, it does say that in balance the sweet taste can actually be a good thing.

Too much of a desire of the sweet taste may indicate a lack of love and other sources of sweetness in your life.  But in moderation, a little bit of sweet, along with the other tastes or rasa is encouraged as part of a healthy individual’s appetite.  In fact, without a little bit of sweet, we don’t feel completely satiated or full.

That makes sense to me and I have to say that I love just a little bit of the sweet taste after a meal.  It’s a simple signal to my stomach that we have reached the end of this culinary journey and that I should be sufficiently nourished for the next few hours.

One of my favourite desserts is one or two little pieces of dark chocolate.

Cocoa Camino's Extra Dark Chocolate
Cocoa Camino's Extra Dark Chocolate

There’s that legitimizing piece of research again.  As this CBC news story reported, a study published in the March 2007 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition ranked chocolate as one of the top flavonoid-rich foods associated with a protective effect, along with whole bran, red wine, grapefruit and strawberries.  Flavonoids are natural compounds found in the cocoa bean, with antioxidant properties – the same compounds that give berries, red wine and green tea their health benefits and they are thought to positively impact cardio vascular disease as well as blood pressure.  Chocolate eaters also reported a better sense of well-being and overall happiness, which may be due to the fact that eating chocolate apparently stimulates the production of serotonin, our well-being regulator.

Before you legitimize your secret cocoa cravings, keep in mind just these few helpful tips.

– Dark chocolate is the only way to go.  Sorry milk chocolate lovers, dark chocolate especially a bar with more than 70% cocoa content has the highest % of flavonoids.  Yes, mars bars etc. do not count here.

– Consume chocolate mindfully and in miniscule doses.  (Hint, chocolate is highly caloric).  Dark chocolate should fill you up pretty easily so this shouldn’t be difficult!

– Remember that you can probably get the same benefits from eating blueberries, oranges, apples and any high in anti-oxidant food.

– Treat chocolate like the special treat it really is.  Savour its sensuality.  This was after all food for the Gods.  The incas even traded in chocolate and valued cocoa beans more than Gold.

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– And lastly, when you do decide to go for chocolate, choose a bar that is fair-trade and organic.  One of my favourite chocolate bar is Canada’s Cocoa Camino especially their Extra Dark with 71% cocoa and a smooth, rich, creaminess that is hard to find in pure dark chocolate.  I also love the chili spice and matcha flavours.

Enjoy.  Thanks for reading.  Please post your comments!

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Category: Wellness, Blog Tags: antioxidants, chocolate, cocoa camino, dark chocolate, eco edibles, fair trade, flavonoids

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Comments

  1. sabrina says

    August 14, 2009 at 4:18 am

    hey! we met at planet claire a little while ago. awesome blog. thanks for coming in, hope to see you soon!
    cheers,
    sabrina

    Reply
    • insiyar says

      August 14, 2009 at 5:55 am

      hi sabrina,

      great to connect, will check out your blog too. be well, i’ll come by soon.

      ciao

      insiya

      Reply

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ABOUT YOGUE  Hi, I'm Insiya. Journey with me as we live slow, scatter beauty and tread lightly on the planet.

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insiyafinn

My internal world has been full of questioning lat My internal world has been full of questioning lately… the ones that keep coming up are: who am I? What do I want to do - with this re-birth into life? Where am I going? What is my purpose? What do I want to create? The questions that emerge when everything under our feet seems like quicksand, when life has seemed contracting and you finally begin to see new openings and light.

I’m allowing space for those answers to emerge, supporting myself w a mindful art course with @bccancer and a weekly women’s circle. BecUse I need to. The emotional whorl is here and real; and while I know it has been a lot I don’t actually realize it until things come up and I feel all the feels.

The body I am in feels different, it is and it will take time to regain my strength and movement ability. And yet life continues and I feel its press: the pull of many roles I bear as a woman, a mother, a daughter, a wife, a teacher, an entrepreneur… and it can feel like a lot!!! 

But then, there is a walk w the sunshine or moonlight on the horizon a meal that celebrates our senses and I remember that I have to stay on my path and begin again…

Photo sprinkles L to R:
1, 2: holiday sparkles w mum and dad 
3. The most delicious lunch ever @belovevictoria 
4. Turmeric, ginger, coriander and fennel: what I made to help me move through a sticky cold this last week.
5. Making herbal salves w @andreapenagos.wellness and @iye.herstories 💖🌱
6. This branch was so beautiful 
7. Lion made a tiramisu (I halved the sugar it was still v sweet)!
8. An appt at BC cancer - I’ll have check ups every 3 months. Each time I see my oncologist I remember how far I have come
9. Today: a walk in the sunshine w my little guy. 

Always counting my roses every day. Have not been writing much recently and need to commit to writing everything down about this last 15 months before I forget… still receiving messages from others encountering cancer and so happy that my story can help give inspiration and hope. Thanks for being here. 
💖💫🙏🏼

#family #growth #exhale #breathe #yogateacher #healcancer #healinsiya #insiyafinn
The roots of where I come from ie. India have alwa The roots of where I come from ie. India have always been an integral part of my practice and study of yoga and Ayurveda, even though my family is Muslim - yoga has always been both and integral and secular practice for me - yet connected deeply to Hindu philosophy - as is Ayurveda. Also so much of what I have learned I also owe to committed teachers and lineage in the west. As someone who has experienced this sort of transnational identity - of space, place, race and more - from living and moving and being in so many countries - i cherish and hold the threads that connect me to meaning and illumination. And I am committed to sharing those threads with lightness of heart and depth of experience.

Super honored to announce that I will be sharing Ayurveda and more @sedonayogafestival this March 2024. If you are considering it say yes. It will be a weekend to cherish. @theblissologist will also be there bringing his incredible Blissology yoga teachings.

And a host of amazing teachers.

Hope to see you there. Ticket prices on a super sale until tonight. Head over to @sedonayogafestival for more. 💖🙏🏼💫

#yogafestivals #yogateacher #growth #ayurveda #modernayurveda #healing #health #india 

Happy Saturday!!!
It’s cold and I awoke this morning feeling like It’s cold and I awoke this morning feeling like I was coming down w a flu. But going outside is always my medicine and the sunshine put on its A game tonight…

One thing I am focusing on right now is how to heal myself by tuning into the rhythms of nature / to our circadian rhythms… this is at the heart of Ayurveda. Happily a lovely yogi sent me a book called “the rhythms of wellness” by Alberta teacher Jaki Daniels, which offers a Chinese medicine perspective on bio rhythms. 🙌

Here’s what is helping me these days:
👇🏽
🌞Getting sunshine when it’s strongest - these days I walk our dog at around 3:30 or 4 pm and soak up whatever light I can.
🥣making lunch my main meal and dinner lighter - this helps our digestive fire to work harder when it can (ie during the afternoon) 
Winding down before 10 pm (trying)!!! But I notice how much better I sleep before getting that second wind of energy.

Lots more about this on my blog if you are interested. Look up « Dinacharya » @ yogue.ça and it will honestly transform your days. 

Saw my surgeon today which was a reminder again of where I was a year ago and where I am today. 

Grateful for a little space of light and sending out as much peace and love as I possibly can. The world needs it. We all do! 💫🙏🏼💖
Loss and grief: it feels both personal (in my body Loss and grief: it feels both personal (in my body and mind after all the surgeries and treatment) and planetary right now with wars that keep on going. 😢

This week I had the opportunity to join a circle of courageous women led by a wise woman who held space for us all to speak out loud the grief we hold. 

We spoke our losses holding onto a stone - their weight in our hands an anchor point - I found my stones earlier that day… walking to a beach w my son and his friend… I chose each one because it felt a certain way in my hands, because I felt their shape and beauty. 

As we moved around the circle, time stopped. 

Words don’t always allow us to fully feel what we are trying to express, but they try their best. And it can be simple words that sometimes express big, unspeakable things…

Tears were shed. The lights were dim and as I held my stone and spoke and then placed it into the vessel of water; I realized that it was only in walking through the curtain of pain that I felt whole once again. 

There is a lot of suffering in life. And most often we cause suffering through our perception of what happened or is happening. What a relief to speak it out and make space for a new way of seeing and feeling.

I don’t have any solutions to the suffering around us. But I do know that it begins with each one of us. And the seed of healing lies in being more kind and more clear and making space for light and love to illuminate our shadows. 

Grief is the other side of bliss. But we have to move through it to get there.

#womenscircles #grief #griefritual #suffering #war #peace #ceasewar #growth #blissology @blissology #healinsiya #healcancer
Happy Diwali!!! May we be reminded of our illumi Happy Diwali!!! 

May we be reminded of our illumination especially at a time when we need all the light we can and cannot see… 🙏🏼❤️‍🩹💖💫🪔

#diwali2023 #insiyafinn #blissedandblessed #family @theblissologist
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