Chocolate is love. It's sweetness is out of this world, and it' melting nature melts everyone's heart. When chocolate melts on your tongue, you forget all anger, all bitterness, and your worst mood take a turn and you become a generous, kind and loving person who is as sweet as chocolate.
Why everyone loves chocolate?? It's not only that chocolate tastes good and we enjoy eating it, there is a science behind why we love chocolates. Chocolates contain a chemical called phenethylamine in a very small quantity. This chemical acts as a central nervous system stimulant in humans. When we eat chocolate, antidepressant hormones are released, it causes reduction in anxiety and elevates and stimulates our mood, this is why we feel so much pleasure and happiness when we eat chocolate. It makes chocolate a comfort food. Wait wait wait, hold on,,, all this doesn't mean that you always look for chocolates and other comfort foods whenever you feel angry or upset, because it makes you happy for a short period of time but it makes you fat for a veryyy long period of time, and you will have to perform intense physical workouts to shed the extra weight that you will put on by eating chocolates while making yourself happy.
Don't worry, off-course you can treat yourself with chocolate but if you want to eat chocolate and still don't want to put on weight then you have two options.
First is that eat chocolate once in a while, may be you can have it once in a week, but don't exceed the amount even if you are consuming it once a week. Have one small bar of maximum 30-60 g in a week. And don't be guilty of treating yourself once a week, as it is rather healthy for you, because if you will deprive yourself of everything that you love, your craving for those things will increase by time and you will end up eating a lot more than usual, and hence you will gain more weight inspite of losing it.
Second option is that you can opt for the chocolates that are not very sweet, means dark chocolate. But you are still not allowed to eat too much of it. But you should check the calories on the pack of the chocolate that you are eating, and adjust it with your whole day calorie intake.
In our home, we have a rule for eating junk food. The rule is very simple, and that is we all can eat junk food only on saturdays. Well, it is a bit difficult not to have your favorite treats for the whole week, specially for kids, but it gives a lot more pleasure on weekends than to have it daily.
Now you may think that why should we make chocolate at home while we can have it very easily from stores. This also have two reasons.
First benefit of making chocolates at home is that you will make these in much healthy way, you will not add preservatives or extra food coloring or artificial flavors. So you will be satisfied with what you eat, and it will not cost you as much as a store bought chocolate.
Second and the most important reason to make chocolates at home, that you can plan to make chocolates on weekends with your kids. You can enjoy a very good, quality time with your kids in kitchen by making chocolates of different flavors. Make different flavors of filling to make different chocolates according to the choices of all family members. Your kids will definitely love the chocolates that they will make with their own hands. They can also try their favorite fillings. And they may surprise their friends by making chocolaty sweet treats for them.
Ingredients:
- 1 & 1/2 cup desiccated coconut
- 1/2 cup condensed milk (or as required to combine the coconut)
- sweetend cooking chocolate
Method:
- Take coconut in a bowl and add condensed milk gradually to make a thick and sticky paste.
- Make shape of the bars and freeze these bars for atleast 1/2 an hour.
- In the meantime, take 1/2 cup of water in a sauce pan, bring it boil. Place a bowl over it and add chocolate pieces in the bowl. When chocolate starts melting, stir it to make it smooth and take out from the sauce pan.
- Now dip the coconut bars into melted chocolate, take out with the help of a fork, remove the excess chocolate with another fork and place the chocolate on butter paper.
- Allow it to cool for atleast 10-15 minutes or you may also keep in refrigerator for few minutes.
- Enjoy your bounty bars. You can also make some other shape with the help of molds.
