Getty Images
Lindt dark chocolate with sea salt is my favorite after dinner?perhaps three or four squares, perhaps half the block if I’m really feeling it. If that’s not available, it’s Lindt dark chocolate with mint, which I think pairs well with peppermint tea. If that can’t be found, I’ll move to Rittner dark chocolate with hazelnut from the convenience store near my apartment. On very special occasions, I allow myself a Cadbury Creme Egg. Tim Tams when I visit my family in Australia. Those are the best days.
Over the past six years I’ve become really interested in health and nutrition, but there’s just one habit I can’t give up: chocolate. So although I no longer pretend that a protein bar and Diet Coke are acceptable lunch foods (I was heavily in denial throughout most of 2009), and I’ve purged my life of soda, greasy takeout, and processed foods, my daily chocolate ritual has stuck like glue. A sweet, delicious glue. This all changed for me about three months ago after I visited medicinal herbalist Daniela Turley. After a few tests and a long chat, she explained that craving chocolate can sometimes be more than just a desire for your daily sugar fix, and eating it in healthier amounts doesn’t just have to come down to sself-control “First there is is a sugar-craving element and second the chocolate component. There may be a nutrient that is in chocolate that the body is craving,”...