Most of us are not making perfect dietary choices every minute of every day but calling it cheating implies a level of dishonesty and secrecy, which creates guilt around every indulgent food experience. I prefer the idea of treats or treat meals, which are planned experiences that you deserve to include to make an eating plan feel a bit more enjoyable and sustainable. If the word “cheat” has no negative connotations for you, go ahead and call it that. “Treat” just feels less underhand to me. Unplanned eating that does not fit neatly into your diet of choice is also different – that’s a genuine mistake. Rather than calling it cheating, which implies a purposeful action, try calling it a mistake. A mistake may be caused by lack of planning, or lack of understanding. You can learn from a mistake. My clients who struggle with constant over-indulgence and repeated mistakes or avoidance of their actual eating plan are not just naughty and cheating all the time. They are usually in a cycle of self-sabotage and need some help to understand their behaviour better and then reframe their goals so that the daily habits of healthy eating feel easier and more appealing than the alternative.
To clarify:
- A treat is a planned indulgence.
- Mistakes are occasional episodes of unplanned eating that you can learn from.
- Self-sabotage is when you repetitively find yourself not following your eating plan.
I feel like there should be some classification of treats according to levels of mental and physical impact. To illustrate, I drew up a matrix of how to define food choices based on their health ratings versus a sense of psychological satisfaction or indulgence. It could probably be on more of a continuum than a simple matrix, but it might be fun(ny) to work out where you stand next time you have dessert.
Quadrant 1: Healthy food that might be nice to eat, but it does not really count as a treat, so leaves you feeling like you might be missing something more fun and indulgent.
Quadrant 2: Healthy and delicious. A treat for your mind and taste buds that also considers effects on your body. Good for routine treats.
Quadrant 3: Unhealthy and not really that nice. More of a mistake than anything else.
Quadrant 4: No health plan, just pleasure.
How do we apply this matrix to planned treats?
Have a quadrant 4 experience once or twice a week. Enjoy it fully and don’t let it throw you off the rest of your plan.
If you like to have a daily treat, keep it in quadrant 2. Aim for a range of 100-200kcal and ideally some other nutrition benefit. For me, this is a treat after lunch with coffee or something after supper with a cup of rooibos tea. Sometimes both. My treat is invariably chocolate-based. The coffee alone is sometimes enough and occasionally I feel like a piece of fruit or some dates instead of chocolate, but I only do that when it feels like exactly what I want. The rest of the time it’s chocolate. Since I am very dedicated to my job, I took this particular post very seriously and I tested a lot of chocolatey treats in order to provide comprehensive feedback and a solid professional opinion. It was very hard work.
Here are a few of my favourite chocolate treats that you could include regularly without absolutely ruining your diet.
Dark chocolate (70% or more)
Portion size: 20-30g
Nutritional perks: Antioxidants, about 3g fibre and 3mg non-heme iron.
Possible concerns: Price and portion control – good quality dark chocolate is more expensive than milk chocolate, but if you buy in bulk and stick to your portion, it’s a good value treat.
Tips: Buy good quality dark chocolate chips and weigh out your portion – this is much cheaper than buying bars and allows you to manage your portion size better. Some good options:
Woolworths: https://www.woolworths.co.za/prod/_/A-6009195030698
Afrikoa: https://afrikoa.com/product/70-percent-dark-chocolate-drops/
Afrikoa also has an 80% sugar-free option: https://afrikoa.com/product/80-sugar-free-dark-chocolate-drops/
Other fun portion-controlled options made with dark chocolate:
The Chocolate Yogi makes these pretty 35g vegan bars: https://www.faithful-to-nature.co.za/the-chocolate-yogi-dark-salted-caramel-chocolate
Nutrition perks: A plant-based option and a very attractive slab shape, but still in a reasonable portion size.
Possible concerns: Price, but not too bad if you share it (or split it for yourself over two days). Don’t be bamboozled by claims of no cane sugar – coconut sugar is still a refined sugar and this is still a chocolate.
Gayleen’s Decadence loaded logs: https://www.faithful-to-nature.co.za/gayleen-s-decadence-loaded-logs-collagen
Nutrition perks: Collagen seems an exciting addition, but there is not really very much in this portion size, so would not get excited about it as a significant protein source. Otherwise, it seems to contain good quality ingredients and the most helpful part is that it is portion-controlled.
Possible concerns: Price.
Woolworths hazelnut or almond cups: https://www.woolworths.co.za/prod/_/A-6009217222346
Nutrition perks: These are sweetened with yacon syrup, so they are quite low in carbohydrates and a small study on obese, pre-menopausal women showed yacon syrup helped with weight loss, reducing LDL cholesterol and improved digestive function in.
Possible concerns: Price.
Dark chocolate-coated chickpeas
Nutrition perks: A significantly better choice than biscuits or malted puffs covered in milk chocolate – lower in sugar and higher in protein and fibre.
Possible concerns: Price and portion control. These ones from Cheaky Co are delicious but only come in 65g packs, so you’d probably have to share with someone or split it over two days:
https://cheaky.co.za/shop/orbs-dark-chocolate/
If you have no self-control, these ones are also delicious and come in 40g portions: https://www.grumpysnacks.co.za/products/chocolate-coated-chickpeas-single-40g-packets
Date balls and other treats made with whole food ingredients
You can make date balls yourself, or buy products like this:
https://plantbasedcreative.com/product/chocolate-macadamia-date-balls/
Tip: Keep your portion to about 2 small date balls at a time, or around 30g total weight, as for chocolate.
These are also fun and come in individual portions: https://www.faithful-to-nature.co.za/nanuki-kuki-chocolate-chip-salted-caramel-45g
Nutrition perks: Eating more nuts, seeds, dates etc with added cocoa powder is definitely healthier than pure chocolate because the cocoa provides all the beneficial nutrition of chocolate, without the fat from the cocoa butter.
Possible concerns: Price and portion control. Still a treat – don’t eat more just because they seem healthy. Making date balls at home helps to reduce costs.
Protein bars
For a little extra boost to your protein intake, if needed. There are “keto friendly” and other low carb protein bars out there, but I really struggled to find one of those that I enjoyed eating. They tasted very artificial and were sometimes overly chewy, or had a strange mouthfeel, so as a treat, I tend to prefer those that do contain some added sugars or carbohydrates because they taste nice. If I genuinely needed to boost my protein intake, I’d do it with obviously high-protein real foods instead. If you do like protein bars, remember to check the labels. Two examples below to illustrate – I’ve tried the Futurelife version, which is nice, but not the USN version yet so let me know in the comments if you like it, or if you have any other ideas:
https://usn.co.za/product/trust-crunch-bar-12x60g/
The USN version contains about twice as much of all the macronutrients, including carbohydrates, so although it says “low sugar” on the packaging, it still contains the same amount of carbohydrates as a slice of bread. The Futurelife bar might contain more sugar, but the overall carbohydrate content (sugar included) is equivalent to only ½ a slice of bread.
For a genuinely lower carb option that still tastes nice, and provides an impressive 15g protein per bar, try this chocolate coated nougat: https://www.miam.co.za/products/chocolate-12-per-box-50g
Possible concerns: Most protein bars are extremely expensive compared with actual foods that are high in protein, so they are definitely a luxury item and not a requirement for health. We should be getting adequate protein from our meals, not our treats.
Other ideas
The following are definitely not “healthy” options, but the portion control and price is helpful and they probably appeal more to children as well:
Chocolate caramel bears, like these: https://www.woolworths.co.za/prod/_/A-6009195487317
Mini chocolates, like these: https://clicks.co.za/nestle_kit-kat-mini-bag-200g/p/320821
The Chocolate Yogi also make these little 15g Oscar chocolates if you are looking for something individually-wrapped that is less than 100kcal and also plant-based: https://www.faithful-to-nature.co.za/the-chocolate-yogi-oscar-mylk-chocolate
To conclude, all of these are treats, no matter how natural/organic/superfoody they seem. They all contain added sugars and fats that are not necessarily the best choices for health, but with reasonable portion control, they probably won’t ruin an otherwise healthy diet and you may just get a small boost to your overall nutrient intake if you choose wisely. I love to convince myself that chocolate is actually a health food by selectively reading articles like this one: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4696435/
…but in all fairness, the conclusion of that article, and mine, is pretty clear:
“As cocoa is predominantly consumed as energy-dense chocolate, potential detrimental effects of overconsumption exist, including increased risk of weight gain. Overall, research to date suggests that the benefits of moderate cocoa or dark chocolate consumption likely outweigh the risks. “
Katz et al (2011)
