Dark Chocolate Biscuits: The New Diet Messiah (Apparently)
Or… How Bourbon biscuits are now one nibble away from being classified as medicine!
Right so apparently, we can now add "eating chocolate biscuits" to the ever-growing list of miracle weight-loss techniques. Right next to injecting yourself in the gut with something that sounds like a Pokémon…Mounjaro!… and trying to walk 10,000 steps a day while avoiding stepping on Lego.
Because according to a new study, eating dark chocolate biscuits… yes biscuits, those things normally regarded as edible guilt… might actually help you lose weight. Not by making you sprint faster. Not by melting fat off your thighs like some Victorian candle. No. By making you feel full.
Let me just pause so you can soak that in.
While some people are out there turning their intestines into a GLP-1 pharmaceutical laboratory by stabbing themselves weekly with Wegovy and hoping their liver doesn't write a resignation letter, a clever Italian team has essentially said: "Here, have a choccy bikkie."
This lot from the University of Eastern Piedmont… presumably fuelled by espresso, disbelief and the seductive smell of cocoa… cooked up a chocolate biscuit spiked with bitter extract from the wormwood plant. That's the same stuff used in absinthe, a drink responsible for more regrettable tattoos and failed relationships than Facebook and Sambuca combined.
They gave this Frankenbiscuit to 11 volunteers… yes, 11, the scientific equivalent of asking your mates down the pub what they think; and found they felt less hungry later in the day. Hormones were released. Cravings dropped. Apparently the cocoa and wormwood tag team gave their satiety hormones such a kick, even their stomachs put up a "Do Not Disturb" sign until dinnertime.
I've tried countless diets. I've attempted the "eat less" plan (miserable), the "move more" plan (sweaty and undignified), and the "drink hot water with lemon every morning" plan (tasted like warm despair). But at no point did anyone suggest I eat more biscuits.
And yet here we are. In a world where a chocolate digestive could be your next prescription.
Honestly, this is better than those daft "sex prevents prostate cancer" studies that made every middle-aged man in Britain suddenly become experts in "preventative healthcare" (complete with a sock and a locked door).
Now, before you go skipping down the biscuit aisle dressed like Willy Wonka with a gym membership cancellation form in hand, let's just tap the brakes slightly. Because… as the scientists sheepishly admitted, this was a study of eleven people. Which statistically speaking, is about as robust as asking a hen party in Benidorm what they think of climate change after their fourth round of flaming sambucas.
And while the wormwood-enhanced chocolate biscuit sounds magical, nutritionists were quick to slap everyone with a leafy bit of kale-flavoured reality. Apparently, we should still be eating fibre and protein, like sad little piles of boiled eggs and chickpeas, instead of launching a biscuit-based diet revolution.
But let's be honest, which would you rather? A humble Hobnob with mysterious weight-loss potential or a handful of edamame beans that taste like damp optimism?
If we can modify chocolate biscuits to actually help people eat less, then frankly I say give the Nobel Prize in Medicine to the nearest Italian baker. It's genius. Comfort food that helps you lose weight? That's not science, that's black magic with a splash of cocoa powder.
Forget jab-in-the-gut diets. Forget sweating like a rotisserie chicken on a treadmill. The future is apparently dunkable.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to "self-medicate" with a packet of Bourbons. For research, obviously…
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Chris Geiger, Author of The Cancer Survivors Club.
Daily Dose of Disbelief!
Bsky: @chrisgeiger.com
Bsky: @thecancersurvivorsclub.com
Bsky: @dailydoseofdisbelief.com
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