Do yoga and chocolate go together?
At yoga studios around the nation, they do.
Chocolatier Katrina Markoff has sponsored yoga/chocolate retreats in Oaxaca (the birthplace of chocolate), where participants focus on chakras with special chocolates. Markoff claims that the ritualistic nature of chocolate eating makes it a natural for spiritual practices. "You can give people a reason to slow down," she explained to interviewers at Beliefnet, "and have a ritual, intimate experience with their body through food -- making eating into something sensual."
Grabbing a piece of chocolate may not be ritualistic for everyone, but chocolate's chemical make up does cause it to have effects on the brain.
David Romanelli, creator of "Yoga for Foodies," serves chocolate and other delectable things at his yoga classes, and is preparing a Yoga + Chocolate retreat in Arizona for Valentine's Day. Romanelli, along with many other foodies, sees the quality and sustainability, and indeed the sensual perfection of food as an essential of mindful living.
These attitudes are in conflict with some of the traditional attitudes of American-style yoga. The New York Times reports that the U.S. yoga industry ($6 billion a year spent on instruction, books, retreats, and fancy gear which may or may not actually make it to yoga class) is divided on this point. Austerity and a vegan lifestyle have been basic principles of yoga since it began to be a popular practice in the U.S. during the 1960s. The yoga way of eating, in those days, eschewed meat, dairy products, caffeine, alcohol, and all exciting foods like spices and garlic. Low fat, calming, simple foods were the order of the day.
Conflicted? You can pick up low-fat fruit-sweetened vegan candy bars made with raw cocoa butter at the health food store, or hold out for chocolate truffles at your yoga studio.
