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Chocolate

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Clarissa

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One of the best non-medicinal ways of combating chronically high blood pressure is to eat a small peace of dark chocolate every day.

So I decided to make this sacrifice for my health and bought 3 large bars of Russian chocolate at the store right now. People who like chocolate will probably not understand me when I say that it’s an effort to make myself eat chocolate every day.

Wouldn’t it be great if one could substitute a piece of chocolate with a piece of sausage to improve one’s health?

Of course, I also bought sunflower and pumpkin seeds. They are even better for hypertensives but at least I love them.

21 responses to “Chocolate”

  1. Pen Avatar
    Pen

    There’s a typo in “…to eat a small peace of dark….”

    I assume you meant “piece?”

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      Definitely. 🙂 Thanks!

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  2. Rimi Avatar
    Rimi

    Oh? How do you eat the sunflower and pumpkin seeds? I suffer from hypertension myself, and I’d be very willing to try this.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      I just get them out of the shells and eat the seeds. It’s important not to buy the salted kind of course. You could also fry them on a red-hot pan (no oil) for 5 minutes or so before taking them out of the shells.

      It’s a national pastime in Ukraine to eat sunflower seeds. 🙂

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  3. Spanish Prof Avatar
    Spanish Prof

    What’s the percentage of cocoa that the chocolate you bought have?

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      90 per cent! Russian chocolate is the best.

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      1. Spanish Prof Avatar
        Spanish Prof

        Geez…I love dark chocolate, but 70% is my limit. You are a brave woman.

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          When I went to the UK on a high school exchange, the host family took me to a candy store to buy chocolate. That was when I first encountered milk chocolate. “Do you have any real chocolate?” I asked. The poor host family scoured half the town to find me one dusty bar of “real chocolate.”

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  4. Danny Avatar
    Danny

    So does that mean dark chocolate cover sunflower seeds would be even more awesome (well not for you since you don’t like chocolate)?

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      If I can scrape off the chocolate. 🙂

      Yes, it’s a great snack for a hypertensive person.

      All kinds of nuts,too, but unsalted, of course. I’m often forced to wash peanuts under the tap. 🙂

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  5. David Bellamy Avatar
    David Bellamy

    I tend to have low blood pressure. Garlic is such a effective blood pressure lowering agent that I feel as though I may faint if I eat a lot of it. This is too bad, since I absolutely love garlic. But I really dislike feeling as though I will lose consciousness if I stand up too quickly.

    I have been hearing from several medical people lately that salt is not going to raise blood pressure if it is sea salt, and if you get enough potassium along with it. I am curious about this. Have you tried increasing your salt intake to see if it really makes a difference? For myself, the garlic problem persists whether I eat a lot of salt or very little.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      We eat a lot of salty stuff in our national cuisine. Everything is pickled in salt: fish, cucumbers, cabbage, tomatoes, mushrooms. And it’s all so delicious! But the result is that we all are very prone to hypertension. I have reduced my sodium intake significantly and have also almost given up on red meat, and the change has been dramatic.

      I love garlic and I’d eat it all day long. But the smell is so strong. This is one of those things that can make one miss being single: I could eat garlic every night in my single condition. 🙂

      Tonight we are planning a Russian cuisine night. So we’ll see how my BP does after this salt assault. 🙂

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      1. David Bellamy Avatar
        David Bellamy

        Good luck with the salty-food experiment! And enjoy the food, regardless!

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          Thank you!! 🙂

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      2. pika Avatar
        pika

        If you like garlic, try roasted garlic for a non-smelly version, this is totally delicious and does not smell at all:
        http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/roasted_garlic/
        I usually have it as a spread on some good bread and it’s so yummy.

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  6. David Bellamy Avatar
    David Bellamy

    Interesting. I eat red meat almost every day, but only bison, lamb, or grass-fed beef. Commercial beef just does not taste good to me after having the grass-fed variety.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      I love lamb but the prices of this meet here are ruinous. 😦 The supermarket beef is very sad and, as you say, tastes strange. Where do you go for the grass-fed kind?

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      1. David Bellamy Avatar
        David Bellamy

        The food coop here in Newark DE sells grass-fed beef. It costs about the same as lamb, since cattle grow much more slowly when not fed grain. If you cannot find a store that sels it, the best bet would be to see if there is a small family owned farm which produces it locally. Are there any Amish farmers in your area?

        If not, I would be surprised if you could not find it in St. Louis. Somewhere, I have a link to a listing of sources for it, but you could probably find it via an internet search. (I will not use the ‘g’ word, except maybe on your sticky swearing post. I like Yahoo search myself.)

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  7. David Bellamy Avatar
    David Bellamy

    “…sells…” Sorry.

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  8. FD Avatar
    FD

    Do you drink coffee or hot chocolate? A square melted in either would enhance the favour while not being a chore in quote the same way.

    I prefer dark chocolate – it is much easier to get over here these days – I suspect this is partially due to the rise in food appreciation becoming mainstream instead of something faddy people do, subsequent increased awareness that dark chocolate cooks better, and also backlash against Rowntree and Cadburys being sold. Possibly also the increase in fair trade awareness – all the big brands were late to the bandwagon, which meant the smaller, fine chocolate companies got the jump on them and increased their market share. Plus the health benefits have been widely discussed here. 😀

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      What a brilliant idea about melting chocolate in coffee!!!! Thank you for suggesting it!

      How come I never thought of it before?

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