Easter Sunday means gorging yourself on chocolate before church, right? That is what it has meant to us for a long time. But this year things have changed.
Over the last couple of years, I have changed my eating habits to include a lot less sugar. I’ve actually found that the amount of sugar I eat determines the energy levels that I have and that cutting a fair bit of sugar from my diet has made a big difference to how I feel. Having said that, every time I tell someone about this sugar thing, I feel like a hypocrite, so I would like to make it clear that I have definitely not cut all the sugar from my diet. I am not that dedicated or good. But I eat a lot less sweet stuff than I did.
Getting used to less sweet stuff means that chocolate doesn’t taste the same to me any more. A few years ago I decided to only eat certain chocolate eggs as the less expensive ones were just not worth it. Now, having graduated to 85% cocoa chocolate (and really enjoying it), anything less than 75% cocoa tastes awful! And even 75% is a bit sweet. And for me, that cuts out all Easter eggs as not being worth the trouble.
DH has changed his eating habits recently too. He’s cut out gluten and found that his hay fever has all but dried up. It’s been a fantastic change. One of the interesting things we’re discovering is the hidden places that gluten (or whatever it is in wheat that sets him off) is hiding. One night he enjoyed a bowl of ice-cream and found that the next day he was a sneezing wreck. When we tracked the cause down to the ice-cream we found that its ingredients included ‘sugar from wheat’ and that was enough to set him off. Anyway, bringing this detour back, many Easter eggs also contain wheat sugar and DH has decided that he doesn’t really need any of that this Easter.
That brings us to DS. As we adults were not eating the chocolate eggs this Easter I asked DS what he would like to make Easter special for him. Would it be a large egg? A certain type of egg? His response was that there was heaps of chocolate in his bedroom and that he didn’t really need any more. It’s true! There is so much chocolate in his room! He just doesn’t eat the stuff he gets given. He’s that type – the type that stores, not the type that gobbles it down. So no eggs needed for DS.
So that’s the 3 of us. No-one wants chocolate in this household this Easter. And before you suggest it, DS also reacts badly to normal chicken eggs so we won’t be decorating those either.
And it has thrown me a bit, I’ve really had to think about it. What is Easter without chocolate? How do you do Easter without chocolate? How do you make it special?
But then, what is Easter about? It’s not, and never has been about chocolate. It is about Jesus’ death and resurrection. I have never thought that I thought Easter was about chocolate. But now that the chocolate has been removed, I have realised how much importance I attached to it. It’s amazing how you can think you believe something but when it comes down to it you actually believe something else. I’m really glad that chocolate has been removed from the equation this year so I can get back to what I really believe.