Eat, drink and be merry

As it now turns out that coffee, chocolate and wine are actually good for you

It has long been my fantasy that science would one day discover that all the stuff that we enjoy eating and drinking – potato chips, chocolate, red wine, coffee – is good for us. And that all the stuff that we loathe – salad, low-fat dressing, green tea, and other such ‘healthy’ options – are actually bad for us. Well, this week I am happy to report that we are half-way there.

A recent study conducted by the Luxembourg Institute of Health, the University of Warwick Medical School, the University of South Australia and the University of Maine (phew! It takes a global village to bring you good news these days), found that those who ate 100 gms of chocolate a day – equivalent to a bar – had reduced insulin resistance and improved liver enzymes. And since insulin resistance is often a precursor to diabetes, which is a risk factor in cardiovascular health, having a chocolate bar could potentially be better for your health than glugging glasses of wheatgrass (that bit of extrapolation is entirely mine, not to be laid at the door of those worthy professors!).

In fact, the same study also looked at the consumption of chocolate alongside tea and coffee. Both these drinks are high in polyphenols, a substance that exists in chocolate and makes it beneficial to cardio and metabolic health. So, the best think you can do is eat your chocolate with a nice steaming cup of coffee or tea.

But don’t celebrate just yet. This is not a license to cut a generous slice of chocolate cake or even tear open a bar of Snickers at snack time. The kind of chocolate that is good for you is one that is closest to the natural product, cocoa; not the processed, sugar-heavy stuff that is stocked in your fridge. So yes to dark chocolate bars with a high cocoa content; no to milk chocolate with industrial quantities of sugar and fat added to it.

Okay, I admit, this is not ideal. But I will take it. Especially since it comes close on the heels of another bit of good news. A joint study carried out by researchers from Belgium and the Netherlands on gut bacteria concluded that diversity – in terms of having many different kinds of bacteria – was good for your gut, and hence, for your health. And one way of increasing that diversity was to drink red wine and coffee.

Red wine has always has its cheerleaders, who credit it with doing everything from reducing cholesterol to bettering cardiovascular health. It is rich in antioxidants, such as quercetin and resveratrol, which play a part in reducing the risk of cancer and heart disease. And red wine is credited with playing a major part in the famous ‘French paradox’, which refers to the fact that while the French eat more dairy and fat, their rates of heart disease are much lower than, say, those of Americans.

Red wine is also an essential element in the so-called Mediterranean diet, which is widely believed to be the healthiest way to eat and drink your way to a long and happy life. Have a glass or two (low to moderate consumption is the key; drink the way Europeans do, no British-style binge-drinking) along with a diet high in fruits, vegetables, unrefined cereals, lots of fish, very little red meat, and lots of olive oil, and you are good to go for another few decades.

But while you clearly can’t go wrong with red wine (so long as you remember to drink only a couple of glasses), coffee too has been getting good press of late. An American Diabetes Association study last year found ‘strong’ evidence that drinking six cups of coffee per day could reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes by 33 per cent for both men and women. However, the results were the same with both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee, so it is unlikely that the magic ingredient is caffeine. But either way, I’ll take it (black and with just a splash of Stevia, thank you).

Especially since coffee seems to offer other health benefits as well. There is evidence that it increases dopamine production in the brain, which explains why you feel so good after that first cup of coffee in the morning. Studies have shown that those drinking four cups of coffee a day had an 11 per cent lower risk of heart failure. And high coffee consumption has also been linked to a lower risk of Parkinson’s, though this benefit seems to be limited to men. (Coffee? Sexist? Who knew?)

So, this Sunday morning, as I sip on my fourth cup of an Italian roast and decant a nice bottle of a light fruity red so that it is ready to drink by the time lunch is served, I send up a silent prayer. Please God, make goji berries and quinoa evil, and turn potatoes into the next super-food. And cheese. Oh yes, please don’t forget cheese!

Thought for food

Let’s hear it for the five key ingredients of a feel-good diet

If you are as dedicated a dieter as I am, you must have noticed how the food orthodoxy changes on us every few years, leaving us thoroughly confused as to what we should (or should not) eat to lose weight.

First, it is that carbs are good. Then, it is that carbs are bad. And now, it is that only a certain kind of carb (the refined kind that leads to a spike in sugar levels) is implicated in weight gain. One diet regimen tells us not to mix carbohydrates with protein on pain of death. Another insists that we need a judicious mix of both. One school of thought has it that milk is the elixir of human life; another insists that it is toxic to anyone above the age of five.

In other words, one man’s meat becomes the same man’s poison if we give it enough time.

I don’t know about you, but this sort of blurry indecision makes me quite dizzy (and not just from the hunger induced by my latest master-cleanse). After all, what is the point of dietary rules if they are going to be reversed every few years as medical science changes its mind yet again on what is good or bad for us?

My way of coping with this is to simply wade through all the information floating around and zero in on the tips that suit me best – and then stick to them through thick and thin (sometimes quite literally). And for the benefit of my fellow-dieters these are the five favourite elements of the weight-loss regimen that I have drawn up for myself.

1) Coffee
Ah, coffee. Now, how could you possibly go through the day without its enticing aroma to keep you awake and interested? I know I couldn’t. I need a caffeine fix to jolt me into consciousness in the morning – and another in the evening when I am beginning to flag. And just to be on the safe side, a couple of shots in between.

Now for the good news. Recent medical research suggests that coffee increases your resting metabolic rate – which means that you burn off fat more easily (and are half as likely to develop diabetes). So, the number of cups of coffee you drink is directly related to the number of calories your burn off. Time to invest in a good espresso machine, don’t you think?

2) Red wine

First up, the bad news. You aren’t allowed to guzzle a full bottle over the course of the evening. Only a couple of glasses are allowed if you want to reap the health benefits of the antioxidant flavonoid phenolics that red wine contains. How exactly does this work? Well, a substance called resveratrol, contained in grape skins and seeds, increases the good HDL cholesterol and prevents blood clotting and plaque prevention in arteries and thus contributes to your cardio-vascular health.

So, why not just eat grapes, you ask? Now, where would be the fun in that?

3) Chocolate

This one comes with a rider. You have to choose a dark chocolate which has a cocoa content that is higher than its sugar content. And limit yourself to a couple of squares instead of wolfing down the entire bar. But if you stick to these rules, your body will benefit from the antioxidants that cocoa contains, which reduce degeneration of aortic arteries and help shift fat deposits. In layman’s terms, this means that a judicious amount of chocolate actually helps in metabolising fat and turning it into energy (or so, at least, I would like to believe).

4) Sleep

If you truly want to lose weight, then don’t lose any sleep over it. Recent studies have shown that dieters who cut back on sleep while trying to lose weight had 55 per cent less fat loss compared to those who clocked up 8.5 hours of shut-eye. This is because sleep deprivation causes the body to release higher amounts of something called ghrelin. And increased ghrelin levels stimulate hunger and food intake, so that you find it more difficult to stick to your diet and eat more than your otherwise would. They also reduce energy expenditure (so whatever you eat doesn’t metabolise as easily) and thereby promote retention of fat.

In other words, if you sleep less while on a diet you will eat more and your body will store what you eat as fat instead of using it up as energy. So make sure you get a good night’s sleep if you want to lose weight.


5) Laughter

Laugh more; weigh less (especially around the midriff). Okay, I exaggerate but only a little. Laughter does have an effect on our weight, albeit in a roundabout way. If you are happy and contented, the level of such stress hormones as cortisol and epinephrine in your body remains low. And that’s a darn good thing because increased levels of cortisol are directly related to fat deposition in the abdominal area – the so-called ‘toxic fat’ that is related to heart disease and an increased risk of strokes.

So, to sum up: being on my kind of regimen means sleeping for 8.5 hours; waking up to a nice, steaming cup (or two) of coffee; snacking on dark chocolate; drinking red wine; and laughing as long and hard as you can.

Now, that doesn’t sound too bad, does it? Try it. You may or may not lose weight. But you will be a much happier person at the end of the day.

Because I like it

Why are we so loath to offer that as a reason for what we do?

A few months ago, when it was a pleasure rather than sheer torture to sit basking in the Delhi afternoon sun, I had lunch at a friend’s farmhouse. The lawns looked lovely, the fuchsia was in full bloom, and the kebabs and beer were going down a treat. There was a sharpish nip in the air if you stayed in the shade. But out in the open, with the heat of the sun on the top of your head, it was heavenly.

But most of the women stayed huddled in the shade, hiding behind factor 40 sunscreen and outsize sunglasses. Perhaps they were wary of sunburn or afraid of skin cancer – or a bit of both. But either way, there was no way they could be coaxed out into the open.

Finally, as the sun began to dip towards the horizon, one of them took her courage into her hands and stepped into the sunlight. In answer to the reproachful looks cast at her, she laughed nervously: “I need to get my Vitamin D fix for my bones, you know.”

In that instant, all that was wrong with our modern mind-sets became searingly clear to me.

We can no longer admit to doing something simply because we want to and because it brings us pleasure. No, everything needs to have a purpose, it must do us some good, it must be a virtuous choice that will improve our life in some tangible way.

So, you could not possible venture out into the sun simply because you like the feel of its warmth on your cheeks. The only valid reason to do so is that your body needs Vitamin D to strengthen your bones. And to produce Vitamin D you need to expose your body to direct sunlight. So, if you don’t want to get osteoporosis in old age (or even in middle-age) then you must spend some time in the sun.

Clearly, we are no longer comfortable doing anything unless we can take all the joy out of it, turning it into yet another cheerless chore among the countless others that make up our maddeningly busy lives.

But while this epiphany struck only on that winter afternoon, this realisation had been hovering at the edge of my consciousness for quite some time now.

A few years ago, when I began taking French classes in the evening, nobody I knew could understand why. What good could learning French possibly do, given that I was editing the features section of a English-language newspaper? How would it improve my life? What was the point of spending my evenings learning a new language when I could be working out/going out with my friends/watching TV?

The same questions cropped up when I began studying Italian soon after. Why Italian? It wasn’t even spoken anywhere in the world apart from Italy. Why not study Spanish which was spoken in so many countries in South America as well? Was I planning to study opera? Er, no. Did I plan to go live in Italy? Not a chance. So why Italian?

I tried long and hard to explain that I studied these languages because I had always wanted to; because I loved the way they sounded; because learning to speak them brought me pleasure. But the only person who seemed to understand was my Italian teacher as she worked her way through the class asking why we were studying the language. When I answered hesitantly, “Perche mi piace” – which translates, quite literally, as ‘because it pleases me’ – she nodded gravely as if it made perfect sense.

Which, when you think about it, is perfectly right. After all, what better reason could there be for doing something other than the fact that it gives you pleasure? And yet, that is the one reason that we are most loath to offer for any of our actions or choices.

At a dinner party, people will ask for a glass of red wine while virtuously pointing out that it is good for your cardio-vascular health to have a couple of glasses every day. What about the fact that sometimes it just feels good to have a glass of red at the end of a long day? That it tastes nice, relaxes you and goes perfectly with the lamb chops? Oh no, that couldn’t be possibly have anything to do with it. It’s those lovely little anti-oxidants that are so good for your heart that we are after.


Reading Hillary Mantel’s Wolf Hall late into the night? Could it be because Mantel tells a cracking good story and the book is hard to put down once you’ve started? Perish the thought. You are just trying to keep abreast of popular culture by reading the book that won the Man Booker prize.

Booking yourself in for a pedicure? Could it be because it feels great to have your feet pumiced and pummelled into shape and then slathered with luxurious cream? Oh no, it’s just that you need to be well-groomed for that business meeting, you understand?

And thus the excuses roll on. But seriously, why do we bother? What is so awful about admitting that we do something because we like it, it makes us happy, it brings us joy. What could be a better reason for doing something than that it simply pleases us?