Two of the greatest foods ever

And they are......drumroll........tacos and dark chocolate peanut m&m's. And I will tell you why. Let's begin with tacos. Because we mustn't start with dessert.

Tacos have long been a favorite of mine. And even more so now, since the days of mom preparing dinner every night for me have long since passed. Tacos are inexpensive (not to be confused with cheap, as making your own you can create some pretty high quality tacos), fast, delicious, and one of the easiest meals to cook ever. Brown ground beef, mix in the seasoning, and done! Now just assemble to your liking. And even better, leftovers are a pleasant surprise instead of a downer. For example, after a day or so, leftovers of things such as chicken or roast or pork chops become dull, and I always struggle to find new and interesting ways to consume the rest. Always a challenge and inevitable when cooking for one person. I open the fridge looking for something tasty, and just think oh yeah, I need to finish that. Absolutely no pleasure from it. However, in the case of tacos it is more like oh yeah! I still have tacos!! I contemplated all of this while finishing off my leftover tacos for lupper today. And no thats not misspelled.

So now that we've established the greatness of tacos, we move on to the m&ms. Now there are many wonderful candies, and m&ms in general fall into this category. Favorites of mine include peanut, peanut butter, almond, dark chocolate, etc. There are a few I'm not crazy about, namely the white chocolate and crispy ones. I may have listed all the varieties at this point. Thats ok. However the new dark chocolate peanut ones far surpass their kin. First let us consider dark chocolate in general. Many people have probably already heard of the health benefits of dark chocolate. Much like red wine, it is good for your heart (of course in reasonable amounts). However, less well known is its application as a cough suppressant. Yup thats right everyone, dark chocolate works as a cough suppressant. So next time you have a cough, instead of reaching for the Robitussin just reach for a piece of dark chocolate and suck on that. I have experimentally verified its effectiveness, and can assure you that it tastes MUCH better.

So now that I have established that dark chocolate in itself is good for you, lets consider peanut m&m's separately. There is a scale for weighing the "good-for-you" factor of foods, especially snack foods, called the glycemic index. Diabetics are generally familiar with it, it essentially rates how much sugar is in foods. Now, on this scale peanut m&m's have a BETTER rating than Cheerios. You know, the food that parents give their children to make them be quiet in church. It keeps them occupied and is healthy right?? But not as much as peanut m&m's!!! So....the logical conclusion is when you need a snack reach for the peanut m&m's!! This is only valid for the peanut variety of course. The hypothesis is that they are mostly peanut, and very little chocolate or candy coating. But they sure taste good!!

So tying together what we know about the health benefits of dark chocolate and peanut m&m's separately, it only makes sense that these benefits add up to a healthy and fantastic tasting snack, with the added benefit of being able to comfort me in my many mood swings!