Confessions of a choco-almond-aholic －アーモンドチョコ中毒の告白－

As I write, I am trying to remove with my tongue a little piece of almond that has got stuck between my teeth.  It got there when I was guzzling a box full of chocolate covered almonds.  By a supreme effort of will, I ate only half of the box before starting my blog.  I shouldn’t have had any, since as I write this it is just before my lunchtime.  There is a danger that I will not leave enough room for more sensible food.

I don’t generally buy chocolate covered almonds.  That’s because I know the effect they have on me.  While eating them, some odd property that they have shuts off the rational part of my brain which constrains my behaviour.  I could be full.  I could be just about to eat dinner.  I could have a dentist appointment.  Still, a box of chocolate covered almonds would not be safe with me.  Even as my mind says, “Okay.  This is the last one.  No more after this,” I find that my hand has picked up several more as if it is following orders from another brain.  I also never eat them slowly.  I devour them at great speed, like a pig before a trough, as if my hands and mouth knew that my brain might try to sabotage the operation and it must be completed as soon as possible.

The strange thing is that it is only chocolate covered almonds that have this effect on me.  I don’t get this way with almonds, although I like them.  I occasionally guzzle chocolate as I am eating it, but I can leave chocolate in the fridge for weeks without opening it or feeling any strong urge to start eating.  Why do these innocuous ingredients combine to provoke such a gluttonous reaction?

I don’t know.  Perhaps Meiji puts cocaine in this one product to keep people coming back for more (legal note: They definitely don’t.)

I can only guess that the human brain sometimes forms a deep attraction to certain experiences it has found pleasurable.  The attraction can be so deep that it becomes linked to your subconscious mind.  Your subconscious mind can send signals directly to your limbs, ordering them to move around without wasting time asking your rational mind for permission.  In that way, your subconscious mind can sense danger and cause you to jump without your higher brain thinking about the action first.

Whatever it is about chocolate covered almonds, especially the Meiji ones, they seem to have direct access to my subconscious.  I have to fight a constant battle with my deeper, animal self to act rationally around them.  I only bought a box today because I have been feeling ill and wanted comfort food.  Instead, I fear I might have let the demons inside me loose once again...

On the bright side, I have finished my blog in record time.  It usually takes me about an hour and a half or two hours to complete, from thinking about what I want to say, perhaps doing a little research, coming up with a definition of difficult words etc.  I have written this in less than half an hour!  It’s amazing what motivational power the unfinished half of a box of chocolate almonds can have for a choco-almond-aholic.

 

Vocabulary:

a confession – an admission that someone has done something about which they are embarrassed or ashamed

a choco-almond-aholic – Okay, I made this word up.  A chocaholic is someone addicted to chocolate

to guzzle – to eat or drink something greedily

a supreme effort – extreme effort; the maximum level of effort

sensible – practical or in accordance with common sense

rational – logical; clear-thinking

to constrain – to limit; hold back; control

to devour – to eat hungrily or quickly

a trough – a long container for animals like pigs or horses to eat from

to sabotage – to spoil or damage something deliberately such as an enemy’s plans, a foreign country’s transport system during a war etc.

innocuous – simple and harmless

gluttonous – excessively greedy

a limb – an arm or leg

subconscious – below the level of thought that you usually notice

one’s subconscious – the part of the mind that is below the level of thought that you usually notice