Jane and Sharan were delighted to welcome 14 Ru3a members to the inaugural Living Well session.
We had a fun and interesting meeting with lots of interaction.
The group leaders had previously had a brainstorm about what might be of interest for forthcoming sessions. This was shared with the group and is included below.
Everyone then had the opportunity for discussion and feedback on topics which they would like us all to explore in more depth. Suggestions included vitamins, hydration, hearing, motivation. Armed with this information we now have plenty to keep us occupied in future Living Well sessions.
This activity was followed by a look at whether chocolate can be a health food. An estimated 0.9 kg of chocolate is consumed globally per person, per year. Professor Tim Spector (Kings College, London) explains ‘chocolate comes from a plant that is fermented…it is a mixture of fibre and protein and lots of essential nutrients and defence chemicals called polyphenols.’
As an aside, polyphenols are powerful antioxidants, which have the capacity to assist with neutralising unstable molecules known as free radicals. This prevents the free radicals from disrupting the integrity of the cells in our body.
Tim Spector also states, ‘If you go for very high cocoa content then you’re less likely to get anything unhealthy.’
A chocolate tasting by the group revealed that the product which contained nothing but 100% cocoa solids was not really palatable, whereas some of the group did quite enjoy one or both of the other two products which contained 85% and 75% cocoa solids.
It has to be said, the welcome refreshment break helped settle our tastebuds.
Next we watched a short video of an interview with Chris van Tulleken on the topic of ultra-processed food. He is passionate about the subject and his book makes interesting reading.
After a brief tour around Professor Carlos Monteiro's NOVA Classification of food processing we all joined in a quick quiz to see if we could identify which NOVA food group a selection of foods might belong to. Here is a sample below.
Finally, we all had a very welcome wind down with a 5 minute Tai Chi session facilitated by Sharan.
For anyone who might want to dig a bit deeper, a few links are included below...
Dark chocolate: An overview of its biological activity, processing and fortification processes
Procyanidin and catechin contents and antioxidant capacity of cocoa and chocolate products
Professor Carlos Monteiro - Ultra-processed foods: what they are and how to identify them
The next Living Well session will be on Tuesday 2 December at 10:00 in The Centre at St Peter's Church.