Greater love of chocolate hath no woman. Chocolate lovers the world over should admire one English woman’s enthusiasm for the tasty treat and her determination to buy her fair share. "A woman with an apparently insatiable sweet tooth stunned staff at a north London shop," recently reported Reuters news services, "when she bought more than 10,000 chocolate bars and had them loaded into her chauffeur-driven limousine." The total bill for the 10,656 Mars candy bars packed in 220 boxes — the store’s entire inventory — amounted to $3,828. (While we’re on the subject, this might be a good time to set the record straight. I have never been to north London, most of the Limousins in this part of the country are a breed of cattle, and my chocolate slush fund isn’t that healthy.) Yes, the woman should truly be admired. It’s not all that easy for an adult — an adult with a conscience — to buy a chocolate candy bar these days. With the anti-fat, anti-cholesterol factions being what they are, buying a candy bar at a grocery store or convenience shop requires a considerable sense of reckless courage. It has always been my suspicion that clerks in the stores tend to make value judgments about their customers. As shoppers’ junk food purchases are removed from shopping carts and parade over their conveyor belts in endless, mind-numbing formations, the clerks aren’t just thinking about prices. While they’re sliding packages of potato chips, cheese curls, and yes, even chocolate bars with their hands over the price scanners, they’re thinking, "Yeah, she needs this chocolate like she needs another hole in the head," or, "Whoa, girl! Have you seen your profile in a full-length mirror lately?" That’s why most of my fried, chocolate and other "it can’t be good for you" food purchases are usually made out of town, far away from the scrutiny of grocery store clerks and any doctors, nurses or health-conscious shoppers who might be standing in the checkout lane behind me. They are all among the critics who fail to realize that chocolate is a valuable, perfect food and it should be recognized as an important food group, not unlike vastly overrated meats, vegetables, grains and fruits. When you think about it, chocolate is actually a vegetable because it is derived from beans. In addition, if we consider that all matter on our planet is divided into three classifications — animals, vegetables and minerals — chocolate is definitely a vegetable. Chocolate is a versatile food and may be consumed in many forms, whether it be hot chocolate, chocolate chips for baking, or plain old candy bars. Chocolate is also a very portable form of nutrition. For example, it would be very cumbersome to strap a 28-pound roasted turkey or a 30-pound watermelon to your back for a weekend hike, but a week’s worth of candy bars can be easily slipped into a backpack. This spring, Finnish researchers gave us yet another reason to celebrate the wonders of chocolate. According to their studies, noted in New Scientist magazine, mothers who ate substantial amounts of chocolate during their pregnancies reported more smiling and laughter in their babies after they were born. In other words, show me a cranky baby and I’ll show you a mother who has very little but the respect of grocery store clerks in her hometown.
