Day 351: After Blizzard, Before Chocolate (...Valentine's) Day

Amazingly, I did not eat a second snack again today, though I had one planned, and at 3:30, my 'snack alarm' went off. Sadly, I was not hungry. 4:00pm, nope, 4:30, and today I left at 5pm, so no second snack. What is happening? I may just have found the perfect lunch for me—it's not too much, not too bad for me, not too filling, but just enough to see me through to dinner (as long as dinner as at 5:59PM on the nose). Dinner was a cacophony because I was with the kids while Emily went out with a friend.

Breakfast
1 Slice of Balthazar Multigrain Bread
4 slices of Ham
3 oz. 50% Jalapeno Cheddar
Tea

Snack
1 mealy Apple
1 medium cup Dunkin Donuts (half decaf)

Lunch: Russo's Salad ($4.42)
Red leaf lettuce, red peppers, red onions
feta, grilled chicken, artichoke
olives, broccoli

Dinner
Ham and Cheese Omelet
Emily's Chinese Cabbage Stir-fry
4 baby carrots
A few pieces of cheeseburger, hot dog

For Chocolate Lovers!

It is that time again and don't think that I didn't get Ruby something special AND chocolate. Though it was hard to pass up the Barbie/Disney/Dora/Bratz chocolate sets at CVS, I went a little deeper and got a special chocolate hearts from Whole Foods. Coincidentally, I got an email today that implored me to share with you all the fact that we can save the rainforests, defy big corporate (M&M/Mars, Hershey's and Nestles) who employ slave labor AND feed our chocolate fix at the same time by locating and purchasing Fair Trade Chocolate (http://store.gxonlinestore.org/chocolate.html).

From their email:
"The chocolate to look for is organic and 'Fair Trade' -- and bears labels certifying both. The organic label verifies that the cacao was farmed in an environmentally sustainable way, while the Fair Trade label guarantees that farmers were paid a minimum price for their product. Without Fair Trade guarantees, small cacao growers are at the mercy of the market. When world cacao prices dip too low, as they have these past 10 years, growers can't make a living wage. Not only is that unacceptable from a human rights perspective, it also increases the likelihood that they'll shift their land to more profitable -- and destructive -- uses, such as cattle ranching."

Since being on South Beach, I've realized that dark chocolate is the way to go. The only problem is, I'm afraid if I go there I won't go back. The truth is, dark chocolate to me, while very delicious, is still a bit off-putting. Maybe I haven't found the right dark chocolate yet? Not that I couldn't eat my weight of it, just that having grown up on Slave Labor Ivory Coast chocolate, it's hard to move forward in a responsible direction where chocolate is concerned. I realize that Dark Chocolate has all the antioxidants and other health benefits while the crap we grew up on features mostly cheap ingredients like sugar and milk and not very much of the good stuff. I think tomorrow I might just have a little dark square (if my valentine gives me one)...