Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 27 on 09/06/2006.

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Go on... treat yourself!

Chocoholics beware: Sue Lawrence is playing temptress

Itried. I really did try. I avoided pushing my trolley down the confectionery aisle in the supermarket. I immediately brushed my teeth after meals so I wouldn’t be tempted. I hid all bars and boxes and tried to banish from my memory their whereabouts. But I couldn’t do it.

Having been challenged by my cynical children to give up chocolate for a month – yes, only four weeks - I failed miserably. By day nine I gave in and devoured a huge slab of chocolate cake at a party. And delicious it was too.

I know this woeful tale will cause shrugs of “so what?” among non-chocolate fetishists. These are the people who will readily tuck into a chocolate pudding or happily nibble on a postdinner chocolate truffle, but could just as easily go without .

Perhaps they would find it just as difficult to give up cheese and onion crisps, although I find that extremely unlikely. There is something seriously addictive about chocolate, something that perhaps explains why grown men and women will open a box of chocolates and devour the lot, even though the nauseous feeling begins to settle in after your fifth strawberry cream. And you don’t even like strawberry creams.

It’s all down to phenylethylamine, the natural substance in chocolate that acts in a similar way to amphetamines – as anti-depressant and stimulant. It helps create emotional highs and feelings of euphoria similar to being in love.

Which is probably why Casanova allegedly rated chocolate above Champagne for its aphrodisiac qualiti.....

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By Sue Lawrence

Section : Scottish Food

Page number : 48