So I was having a bit of a chocolate craving the other day so popped down to the local shops to stock up on the sweet stuff. I am quite mindful about what I eat and usually just stick to dark chocolate, I love Green and Blacks seventy percent with mint, that’s usually my go to sweet tooth craving. However on this particular day I was being bit of a rebel and just wanted something different and old school to satisfy my cravings but me being me I ended up killing the chocolate party when I started checking the ingredients and that’s when the dream ended! I was horrified to discover almost every chocolate on the shelves of the picture I’ve displayed contains Palm Oil!
Why is Palm Oil not so good for you? “While palm oil has no trans fats, it does contain high levels of saturated fats, which can be a significant threat to cardiovascular health” – I pinched this little sentence from the LiveStrong website where you can read the rest of the article here.
So why does this concern me? Poor heart health runs in my immediate family so it’s a major concern to me and in my best interests to stay clear from foods which would trigger this in the future. As we all know heart disease doesn’t happen instantly, its from years and years of abusing our bodies with incorrect nutrients, sounds harsh I know but it’s the truth and we should all be aware of it.
For me palm oil gives me a belly ache almost instantly, not when I eat chocolate but it’s usually when I have chips from a fish and chip shop, I’ve experimented a few times and have the same results every single time. My parents have a take away restaurant and used to use palm oil because that’s what suppliers would recommend or it would be the cheapest product to use but when I would complain about stomach issues my parents looked in to changing from palm oil to a different type as my dads philosophy is “I only feed my customers what I would feed my children.” I think that is such a powerful statement because it shows health comes before money and I’ve taken that same mindset forward into my own businesses and when I cook meals for people and myself.
So from the shelf of about fifty different chocolate bars the only ones that I found not to contain any palm products are Bounty Bar and Smarties. This is the same with biscuits too, like a mad woman I spend half of my shopping trips checking ingredients. I was super looking forward to some custard cream biscuits one day but unfortunately they contain, you guessed it, palm oil!
Another thing to look out for is jelly based sweets and biscuits as they contain gelatin, usually beef gelatin, which I also stay clear from. For example most of the Haribo sweets contain gelatin as do marshmallows which was shocking to me, so no more s’mores or hot chocolates covered in these fluffy sweet treats and even Jaffa Cakes do!
So the point of this ranty blog post is to listen to your body, if you are feeling uncomfortable after a certain meal or treat it’s probably due to a certain ingredient used in it. Check ingredients on packets so you know exactly what you’re putting in your body.
Don’t be disappointed about not being able to have your favourite sweet just feel lucky that you have discovered how unhealthy it is for your body. We live in such a magical time where the world is waking up to these unethical companies feeding us utter crap and healthier companies and brands are stepping forward to provide us with better alternatives.
