It is so long now since I stopped eating normal chocolate and sweets that I get a little surprised when I hear everyone talking about coping with sugar overloads and highs over Easter.
Apparently Australians are going to spend $185.7 million on chocolate this year. Really? Why? The cynic in me says that the they are telling us this information this weekend so that people will subconsciously feel that they have a duty to conform.
But, this does not have to be a self fulfilling prophecy. You can be different and if you are truly conscious of your own health and that of your family, why not stop and think about all this before running out and buying stuff you don’t need?
I know that some of you will be saying – what?????? How can she say that? I know you probably love chocolate. Lots of people do. I know lots of people who are truly chocoholics so Easter provides a convenient excuse to eat too much of it.
But really, is it necessary? Is it worth the feelings of guilt that follow? And more importantly, if you are a parent, what kind of role model are you providing for your children?
No, I’m not judging you, just suggesting that you stop and think before you eat too much!!
So here is how I approached Easter and chocolate when my kids were young and what we do now they are adults…..
Easter has never been a time of sugar overload for my family. When the children were young I would start buying little eggs early in the year to share with the children as part of their afternoon snacks – perhaps every few days or once a week. So by the time we came to Easter eggs were not so special.
We did give them chocolate eggs on Easter Sunday morning but we didn’t make a huge deal out of it. We did not want them to be different to other children but at the same time the chocolate egg giving was not something that we wanted them to focus on at Easter. After all it is not what it is all about! We did eat some for dessert after church and lunch but we did not eat chocolate all day.
When the children were older, a token egg was given each year but interest was not huge and so the eggs often sat in the cupboard for months until I threw them out, sometimes at Christmas time.
What do we do now?
We don’t do a great deal to celebrate Easter as a family. We may have one or two children at home to spend time together but chocolate is not a huge part of it. I will make Hot Cross Buns on Good Friday, we will have a family meal on Easter Sunday, go for a walk, watch a few movies and just hang out. There may be some chocolate but these days it is likely to be sugarless chocolate. Or there might be an exchange of red wine instead.
For years now we have dared to be different and choose our own Easter experience. And we enjoy ourselves!
So how can you enjoy Easter without the huge sugar overload?
Don’t be duped by the media into spending up on chocolate that you don’t really need.
Buy sugarless (sweetened with Stevia) or buy dark chocolate.
Don’t save your chocolate up for that one day.
Eat cheese instead if that’s your thing.
Make hard boiled eggs and decorate them to eat for breakfast!
Have a picnic and go for a walk outside in the beautiful Autumn weather.
What ever you choose to do, we wish you a blessed Easter from our family to yours.
We hope you will also join us at Helpful by Nature by subscribing to our email list. We would love to hear from you, take your questions and provide answers if we are able.
Until next time,
Gillian (and Andrew)
