Don't throw away your gifts of chocolate and food. Drop them off at a nursing home or assisted living facility, the ones where the beds are mostly Medicaid and the residents only have $35 a month to spend. They are old, in ill health and unhappy, yet most of them have a sweet tooth. Such gifts can bring joy to an older person. The biggest complaint at those facilities is how lousy the food is and a gift basket of chocolates would make many of them happy. And if you are age 90 in a wheelchair, getting clogged arteries may not be a concern.

I am not certain if chocolate has cholesterol or transfat in it. Didn't the American Heart Association recently acknowledge that dark chocolate is high in anti-oxidants and is actually good for the heart?