So Long, Cocoa, My Old Friend (Month 2, Day 39)

Have you seen the movie Labyrinth? The part where the girl realizes that the Goblin King (David Bowie) can't actually control her anymore and she says "You have no power over me!" and the whole world collapses.

I can now look squarely at a bar of chocolate and say "you have no power over me."  What a great feeling!  Of course it doesn't mean that I don't get the occasional twinge for a hit of chocolate truffle.  But it's not overwhelming...it doesn't interfere with my reality - not a support beam.

Why isn't chocolate in my diet?  Well, I looked on my handy-dandy foods with histamine list and it was on there, by golly!  With a little digging I found this cryptic blurb:

Food allergy to cocoa appears to be rare although occupational allergy in workers exposed to cocoa dust has been reported (Zuskin et al. 1998 [806]; Perfetti et al. 1997 [808]). However, self-reported allergy to cocoa appears to be common (Brugman et al. 1998 [809]). Because of this cocoa has been included in studies of the prevalence of food allergy (Young et al. 1994 [810]) and DBPCFC has been used. 

It has been suggested that intolerance to cocao involves biogenic amines. However, Jansen et al. (2003) [805] found no evidence for this. Moller et al. (1984) [575] in a study of of penicillin allergy in occupationally exposed individuals showed cocoa to produce non-allergic histamine release in basophil mediator release test. Becker et al. (1981) [21] extracted a species of 20 -40 kDa (centred on 26 kDa) which activates the factor XII-dependent pathways. However, the inflamatory activity may involve polyphenols binding to complement and does not necessarily involve IgE.

So, chocolate basically can stimulate a histamine release, but it's questionable as to the extent of that release.  So, still not on my diet. Sigh...

Of course, many times people are allergic to all the OTHER stuff that goes into those delectable dark bars, but I'm talking really basic, good cocoa here.  See one of my first posts on my fave, really super duper quick and healthy chocolate recipe.  Unfortunately, there are many benefits to chocolate too.  I don't want to talk about those.

Today's Diet:

Water
1/4 c Smoothie/Manna with Earth Balance
Mint Tea
Rice with Cauliflower Dal, apple with cashew butter
Corn Nuts and 1/2 c leftover smoothie
Out to dinner: Garden salad with balsamic vinegar and olive oil, and french fries...
Totally forgot my pill!


Image: Slice of MIT