Living A Life You Love with Bonnie and Greg Dixon ~ Adventures with Chocolate

What if indulging in your favourite treat could be beneficial for your health? Join us as we uncover the surprising perks of enjoying chocolate in moderation. Bonnie shares her expertise on how this delectable delight can lower blood pressure and enhance brain function, all while we revel in personal tales from our "Chocolate Whisperer" honeymoon escapades. Imagine a chocolate buffet at a Hotel or the rich flavours of chocolate-infused mole sauce. Our conversation is a sensory journey, encouraging everyone to savour chocolate consciously and guilt-free.

But the adventure doesn't stop at chocolate! We're thrilled to unveil our plans for a vibrant new platform for Living A Life You Love, designed to celebrate the passions that bring joy to everyday life. From music and dance to network marketing and Unity, we're creating a space where everyone can shine their light. Embrace the motto, "life is short, eat dessert first," and join us in building a community that inspires and uplifts. Please bring a friend and be part of this exciting journey, as we aim to share something new and uplifting almost every day.

Come learn more about Shared Visions Unlimited at https://sharedvisions.com/

Episode Transcript

Greg (00:00):
Well, happy Tuesday everyone.
This is Bonnie and Greg Dixon.
Part of your Living a Life, youLove adventure here, and we're
going to talk about chocolate,adventures with chocolate.
So, before we get too far, whydon't you type in the comments
here if you like chocolate, justgive us a.
Yes, there are a couple ofpeople in the world who don't,

(00:24):
but it's hard to say.
And meanwhile we've got acouple of things to share with
you and Bonnie, do you have somethings to talk to about the
health value of chocolate?

Bonnie (00:37):
Absolutely so.
What's really fun is often wethink, oh, the foods that are
good for me don't taste good.
Fun is often we think, oh, thefoods that are good for me don't
taste good.
But in this case, research,especially in the last 20 years,
has shown chocolate has somebenefits.
Now, one of the things I mustsay is it comes in many forms.
Milk chocolate has milk addedto it.

(00:59):
Dark chocolate a lot of timeshas sugar added to it, and so we
want to think about this issmall but mighty, so we'd want
to use small amounts of darkchocolate.
Now, one of the things thathere's just I'm just going to
read off a slew of things justknowing that it can be very

(01:20):
helpful, particularly forlowering blood pressure,
reducing cholesterol, improvingbrain function, reducing
inflammation and I'm saying allthese words off of an article,
just so you know where this iscoming from Reducing the risk of
heart disease, reducing therisk of diabetes, reducing the
risk of cancer, preventing bloodclots and improving memory.

(01:44):
Now, I'm a layperson, I'm justreading this off of an article,
off of the internet.
Now, the thing is, what we wantto do with any food,
particularly chocolate, isknowing that small quantities
and the best chocolate you canafford are the best way to do it
and, done over time, you canadd some benefit.

(02:07):
The cacao bean is fascinating.
It's really ugly actually, andwithin this big funny thing is
inside this little seed, andthey ground it up in South
America, the Incas, and theywere drinking it almost pure and
probably not with muchsweetener.
I don't know if you've ever haddrinking chocolate, but it's

(02:30):
very intense, again, in smallquantities.
But in past, people that hadlots of sugar and then you get a
sweet bar that you can eat, orlots of milk and sugar and then
you get milk chocolate or evenwhite chocolate, which isn't.
It's only the fat from thechocolate, not the part of the
bean that is really antioxidant.

(02:52):
So what I want to just say aboutchocolate is it's one of the
foods you can feel good about ifyou like it.
I think a great way to addchocolate into your diet if if
you want the health benefits, isto use cocoa powder, and cocoa
powder is not highly sweetenedand you can add it to, say, your
coffee, or you can add it toyour milk or cereal or oatmeal

(03:16):
and get small quantities thatway.
Now for myself, I do love allchocolate milk chocolate, white
chocolate, dark chocolate,chocolate with almonds I love it
all, but as a nutrient, densefood that's what we're talking
about here Use it sparingly, butdon't feel bad if you eat

(03:39):
chocolate.
Even the founder of LifeWave,david Schmidt, will mention dark
chocolate as one of thosethings to add to your diet for
the extra nutrition.
So with that, I'll just say,greg and I have just loved
touring around when we were onour honeymoon interviewing

(04:00):
chocolatiers, and so that'sanother fun way is go to a local
chocolatier and try out somereally good chocolate.
How about you, honey?

Greg (04:12):
Yeah, well, we, going back to the touring, we spent some
time.
Wherever we would go, we wouldstop off and interview and take
photos in chocolatier shopsphotos in chocolatier shops and
we called ourselves theChocolate Whispers.
We rented, we bought a domainand we should have probably
followed through with it.
There are tons of greatchocolatiers in the Vancouver

(04:34):
area.
We went to the chocolatefactory in Burnaby and I've got
a video I have to track it downabout the Ghirardelli Chocolate
Factory in San Francisco.
So it's all fun stuff.
Anyway, back to the healthbenefits.

(04:54):
So my story is there used to beand it was called the Mirage
Hotel.
It's now the Sutton Place Hotelin Vancouver.
They had a chocolate buffet andyou go in there and you spend a
small fortune for the buffet.
They had things like chocolate,pizzas, fruit, all sorts of
anything you can think ofchocolate.

(05:16):
And I was standing there as ayoung woman.
She was sort of hesitant to goin.
I'm pretty sure she had gone inonce and then she was deciding
whether she wanted to go in andget some more.
So I just leaned over and Isaid I read this article one
time that said the human bodycan only stand so many chocolate
calories and it simply ignoresthe rest.

(05:36):
She looked at me and she saidwell, that sounds pretty bogus,
but it works for me.
So she grabbed the plate andwent back in.
So if you ever wanted to beenabled for any kind of
chocolate habit, just just giveme a call.
I encourage you to do it yeah,back to chocolate benefits.

Bonnie (05:56):
Imagine anything from savory to sweet.
I just thought of a really coolrecipe and in Mexican cooking
you use a bit of chocolate tomake a sauce, a mole sauce, to
go with chicken.
Oh, my goodness, that's good.

(06:16):
So think of chocolate as savoryand sweet.
It doesn't always have sweet.
Yeah, savory and sweet, andagain to use always have to be
savory and sweet.
And again, to use it, use itsparingly, but don't be afraid
of chocolate itself.
It's usually a higher qualitybar, will have less sugar and

(06:37):
more cacao butter.
And actually it took me a whileto get used to dark chocolate.
But if you let it, a small bite, a small square, melt in your
mouth, just let it melt, you'llreally get to taste what
chocolate is and it not.
It again, it's not foreveryone's tastes, but at the

(07:00):
same time just think of it as aningredient that can be very
beneficial.
Again, in small doses.
You're not eating the wholechocolate bar, for heaven's
sakes, too much.
A small square of darkchocolate a day or every other
day could be very beneficial.
And I think when we think ofchocolate, we think of, you know

(07:25):
, oh, an indulgence.
So when you do do it, bewilling to spend the extra bucks
, because then you're eating itsmaller quantities, sparingly,
but knowing it's nutrient denseand that's the fun part of it.
I'm trying to think of a goodchocolate recipe.
I think for myself is anold-fashioned recipe.

(07:46):
It was during the Depression.
It's called Depression Cake andit's actually eggless, milkless
, and it's so easy to make.
Look it up, it's a chocolateDepression Cake.
If you need the recipe, makesure to contact me as well.
I'd be happy to share it withyou Because, again, you can have
a sweet treat, and this oneuses cocoa powder, and it can be

(08:10):
very helpful because you could.
You don't have to use wheatflour.
You can use a another kind offlour, a wheat free flour or mix
and or oat flour, and you getthe wonderful benefits from
doing that.
Yeah, so one thing I must sayabout you, honey you and I love
chocolate and we indulge and itmakes us very happy, and that's

(08:33):
one of the things living a lifeyou love.
You want to have fun in lifeand chocolate's one of them for
most people.

Greg (08:41):
Yeah, so I joked.
One time I went into Walmartand I bought some eggnog and I
said you know, I wanted to havesome cereal and eggnog but I was
out of eggnog and but now it'sout of season.
Cereal and chocolate milk wouldwork too.

Bonnie (08:58):
Cereal and chocolate milk for my honey.

Greg (09:01):
Yeah.
So I asked, put in the chat,what kind of chocolate do you
like?
And you know where you're at.
If you know any really goodchocolate tiers in your town,
you know you can recommend it.
That'd be great and that's goodfun.
So we're eventually where we'reheaded with.
This is living the life youlove is.
We're going to have a websiteand a blog and uh and uh podcast

(09:26):
, and you could go back in andand we're really uh, wanting
this to be an open thing, and soif you have something that you
really love to do and you wantto share it, come and be a guest
, you know, and if you want totalk about chocolate, if you
want to talk about, uh, almostanything, I I'm going to talk
about almost anything.
I'm going to talk about somemusic.
At some point we're going totalk about dance and network

(09:50):
marketing, all sorts of things,maybe even Unity.
We've got some experience withUnity, so we're going to have a
lot of fun with this platformand you're probably never going
to be sure what's going tohappen every day.

Bonnie (10:03):
It reminds me of the song title.
You know, what the world needsnow is love, sweet love, and, I
think, living a life you love.
This is all we can do from dayto day, moment to moment, is
live a life you love, shine yourlight and it will brighten up
the whole room and the wholeneighborhood and your neighbors

(10:26):
and your family members.
And just know that we can bethe change.
You know, a mosquito is verytiny.
It makes a big difference inyour life.

Greg (10:38):
We want to be the opposite of that.

Bonnie (10:40):
We want to be the light, where you turn the light switch
on and everyone around says, ah, it feels so good to be in the
light.

Greg (10:48):
It's good to be in the light it's good to be in the
light.
And Bonnie and I have a saying.
We say life is short, eatdessert first.
So get your hit of chocolatejoy before you're reading the
news.

Bonnie (11:07):
Yeah, that's for sure.
Well, I look forward to livinga life you love all together.
Bring a friend and let's havesome fun.

Greg (11:17):
Yeah, okay.
So we're going to try to dothis almost every day, and so
stay tuned and see what we comeup with for tomorrow.