Posted17 avril 2022, 07:01
Easter sweets go more and more badly with some adults, who do not want to develop a sugar addiction in their children.
To bite or not to bite into a bunny ear at Easter when you are a child? This is the question that some parents ask themselves.
20Min/Matthias Spicher
It is a long-standing tradition in Switzerland as in other countries: at Easter, chocolate eggs and bunnies are offered, especially to children. Catch-up: More and more parents are finding this custom nutritionally problematic. And therefore prefer to offer inedible, even useful, gifts to their offspring instead.
Like this Zurich resident interviewed by our colleagues from 20 Minuten. “Our son loves chocolate, but we prefer to give him a toy at Easter,” she says. As for his six-year-old niece, she gives him a deck of cards rather than a rabbit. According to her, the little ones will be able to enjoy these gifts for longer. And above all, it limits their consumption of sweets: “we eat way too many of them. This consumption has to stop at some point,” she explains.
Rather “Lego or an insect hotel”
On the side of family bloggers, we are also critical. “I don’t give chocolate bunnies to my children at Easter either,” says Moana Werschler, known in German-speaking Switzerland as “Miss Broccoli.” She suddenly asks those around her to offer her toddlers, as far as possible, useful gifts, such as “Lego or an insect hotel”. However, she does not ban sweets for her children. But prefers to opt for healthier and less sugary alternatives like gummy bears made with stevia, she explains.
Another blogger chose not to give her daughter sweets until she was two years old. But now that her child has turned three, she now accepts that her relatives spoil the little one with a chocolate rabbit, “as long as not everyone offers her the same thing”. His wish? Avoid a potential addiction becoming a source of conflict with the young lady.
No need to ban rabbits
On the other hand, another mother believes that Easter is inseparable from the rabbit and cannot imagine depriving her children of the joys of biting into the ear of a chocolate animal. Children should be able to enjoy Easter and, for once, eat a little more chocolate than usual, she believes. “There’s no point in making everything healthy and educational,” she criticizes.
An opinion shared by nutritionist psychologist Nicole Heuberger, even if she says she understands some anti-chocolate parents. But she reminds that Easter only takes place once a year. “No need to set an example that day and ban rabbits,” she explains, recalling that it is not necessary to offer a chocolate critter as big as the kid either…
The tradition of offering a rabbit, which symbolizes spring, renewal and fertility comes from Germany (the Osterhase). Its origin comes from a German legend in which a poor woman, unable to offer sweets to her children, decorated eggs which she hid in the garden. The children, seeing a rabbit, believed that it was this animal that had laid the eggs.
As for Easter eggs, the tradition goes back to Antiquity, since Egyptians and Romans already offered painted eggs, symbols of life, in spring. The Christian tradition dates from the 4th century: the Church forbade the consumption of eggs during Lent, these were kept to be decorated and offered at Easter.
(Bettina Zanni/cht)