Easter and Chocolate - Your guide to doing it right!

Happy Easter to those who celebrate it and Happy March/April holidays to those who don't!

Whether you celebrate or don't, you must have noticed the large amount of chocolate eggs and cardboard bunnies filling supermarkets recently. Yes, Easter is to confectioners as Mothers Day is to Florists - a chance to make oodles of money and to get as many children eating chocolate as possible. Maybe in the future this holiday will be known as Diabetes awareness holiday?

I am not going to sit here typing and condemning people on buying chocolate for kids, but I will give a few pointers on what to look for when buying chocolate so at least you don't give them a helping of chemical shitstorm along with it.

First, a quick history lesson!

As a trivia nut, I love researching these things. I wanted to know how chocolate came to be apart of Easter. There are a few different European traditions which provide answers on why an egg was used:

• Eggs are a symbol of fertility and Easter was originally a celebrated at the time of the Spring equinox with a feast for the Earths resurrection and birth. Extra trivia here - The Assyrian goddess Eostre was the goddess of birth - this is where the name Easter comes from! ;)
• In Christian customs, eggs were stained red in the memory of the blood of Christ shed at his crucifixion.
• In traditional Lent, eggs were forbidden as they were seen as a dairy food and the day we know as Pancake Tuesday was used to mark the last day where eggs could be consumed before Lent begins.
• In Jewish tradition, there is a custom of having a roasted egg as part of their Passover meal (Seder).
• Easter eggs in Europe are covered in a wax and then brightly painted to symbolise new life.

A German tradition of hanging eggs from trees - a picture from my beautiful friend in Germany xoxo

I'm sure you are all learning something from this, but what does this have to do with chocolate? Chocolate Easter eggs were first sold in the 19th century by French and German confectioners. Chocolate is much nicer to eat, so it was a brilliant idea!

What to look out for this Easter...

1. Say no to palm oil!

You may or may not be familiar with what palm oil is doing to our planet? Palm oil is extremely popular to use by manufacturers and can be found in baking goods, confectionery, cosmetics, body products and cleaning agents. Unfortunately most palm oil produced is not from sustainable methods and vast areas of rainforest are being slashed and burned to make way for palm oil plantations. Many orangutans (who are dwindling in numbers) and other wildlife are being killed in the process.

Many countries have laws about mandatory labelling of palm oil, but companies hide it under other names, such as vegetable oil - how many times have you seen that on a packet? Visit http://www.saynotopalmoil.com/palm-oil.php for the top 30 list, its incredible.

So what chocolate is palm oil free this Easter?

2. Avoid the chemical shitstorm

I took this photo when I was buying chocolate for my 6 nieces and 1 nephew:

Needless to say that this product did not get purchased. What is half this stuff? the flavour vanillin is actually pulped treated wood chips which happens to smell like vanilla and is a very common cheaper flavour added to foods - watch out for it. Vegetable oil also lurks in this ingredient list, as does colours which are recommended to be avoided by the Hyperactive Children's Support Group, as it may cause allergic reactions.

What to look for when buying Easter eggs...

• As less amount of ingredients as humanly possible - its chocolate, not a chemistry experiment.
• Avoid anything that has palm oil or vegetable oil in it (look at the list above for good companies)
• Opt for dark chocolate if your child will not wrinkle their nose at it - dark chocolate has been less processed than milk chocolate  - see my facts on cocoa blog for more info.
• Go for organic chocolate if you can find it - at least you know the cocoa they use is only cocoa and not cocoa + sprays to keep insects off!
• Don't over indulge - Australia is large enough already, lets not keep adding to our obesity epidemic by buying little Johnny 100 eggs and then wonder how he developed diabetes when he is aged 8. Lets be sensible!