The Home & Dining Channel’s Fall Scavenger Hunt officially begins today! Click here for the rules and happy hunting!
Here is the list of words you need to find throughout the month to win, and the corresponding day they’ll appear:
Oct 1 – Pumpkin
Oct 2 – Yellow
Oct 3 – Apples
Oct 4 – Hot chocolate
Oct 5 – Maple
Oct 6 – Hay
Oct 7 – Gourds
Oct 8 – Sweater
Oct 9 – Change
Oct 10 – Spice
Oct 11 – Brown
Oct 12 – Rake
Oct 13 – Fall
Oct 14 – Orange
Oct 15 – Chilly
Oct 16 – Cornucopia
Oct 17 – Colors
Oct 18 – Marshmallows
Oct 19 – Hayride
Oct 20 – Leaves
Oct …read more

I was reading this month’s Family Circle magazine and found a blurb about chocolate in the health section, titled “Be Sweet to Your Heart:”
“Tea and chocolate have been touted as heart smart, but you’re better off reaching for the latter, reveals a new review. “Cocoa causes systolic and diastolic blood pressure to drop about 5 and 3 points, respectively, while tea doesn’t appear to have much of an effect,” says study author Dirk Taubert, M.D., Ph.D., of the University Hospital of Cologne in Germany.”
~ Family Circle Magazine, August 2007

This is fine by me as I’d much rather reach for some …read more

Romantic music plays, candlelight flickers, and the couple lean towards each other… and pop a chocolate into their mouths. Betcha thought they were going to kiss each other, didn’t you!
A new study shows that this couple would get the ultimate experience not from a kiss, but from chocolate. The study measured both the brain activity and the heart rate after a passionate kiss and after a piece of dark chocolate. While the psychologists involved in the study predicted a rise in both body functions when the volunteers ate chocolate, they were surprised at the intensity of the reactions. They were …read more

Now you need to take the idea of chocolate as a health food really seriously. I’ve been telling you that dark chocolate is the healthy stuff, and that your regular milk chocolate bars, though tasty, really don’t have those health benefits. Now Hershey’s is trying to prove me wrong.
They have come out with a line of healthy chocolate bars which includes not only an Extra Dark Pure Dark Chocolate Bar, but two milk chocolate bars, the Antioxidant Milk Chocolate Bar and the Whole Bean Milk Chocolate Bar. All three varieties measure a higher antioxidant capacity than either a cup of …read more

While I’m all for consuming chocolate (obviously), I also completely understand that everything we eat, chocolate included, needs to be offset by some exercise. If we don’t work off the calories we take in, we get fat, plain and simple. My strategy has always been to eat what I want, never diet, but exercise as needed. So far it is mostly working, although I find as I age I need to continually work a little harder at it.
But since tomorrow is Easter Sunday, I know that I will be consuming more than my usual amount of chocolate, so I should …read more

Be careful what you are eating! Nestle Canada has issued a voluntary recall of their Caramel Kit Kat Chunky chocolate bars. This is a result of the possibility that some of the bars may contain pieces of hard plastic. The bars are manufactured in Australia, but it is only this specific type of bar that is affected. Other Kit Kat bars are not part of the recall. Fortunately, there have been no reports from consumers of any plastic being found or of any injuries. If you have one of these chocolate bars, but you …read more

Do you pay cash separately for your chocolate so that your family won’t know how much you are eating? Do you eat the equivalent of a dozen chocolate bars each day? I’ve always thought of myself as a chocoholic, but stories like these really show that some people are way further into an addiction to chocolate than I ever could have imagined.
In fact, I’ve never thought of a chocolate addiction as being a necessarily bad thing, but as the above examples illustrate, there is a downside to being a true chocoholic. If you are spending money you can’t afford to …read more

Tis the season to hunt down great candy – and one part of my hunt is for great sugar free candy for my husband who is diabetic, and LOVES chocolate. Not only that, he is incredibly picky about his chocolate, making it necessary to start early to find something great for him. A Bountiful Harvest is one of our favorite chocolatiers – partially because of the fabulous sugar free chocolates they make and partially because their presentation is so beautiful. Check out this bunny that is coming home with us for Easter – he is too …read more

Attention all you male chocoholics and anyone who lives with one.  For that matter maybe all males and anyone who lives with one should listen up.  A Finnish study has concluded that eating chocolate is oh so good for you.  The study has been tracking a group of men since the 1960’s.  That’s a long time.  Even I was only young then.
The study looked at men who are, well, not young anymore.  They are now well into in their 70’s and 80’s and they have been looking at the effect of chocolate consumption on their overall health.  The men who …read more

Chocolate and health aren’t something we always put together, although these days it is a little easier to do than in days gone by. This week, at I.Ate.A.Pie, they are reviewing healthy chocolate products. So far we have:
The CocoaVia Chocolate Blueberry Snack Bar (yum!)
Kemps Fat Free Chocolate Frozon Yogurt (not so good – fat free is never good, IMO)
Stonyfield Farms Fat Free chocolate Underground Yogurt (again with the Fat Free – you know, I have tried SO hard to like Stonyfield yogurt – and I love yogurt – but it just doesn’t get it for me. They are so cute …read more