Ever heard that old saying, “A chocolate a day keeps the doctor away”?
No?
Well, you’re about to.
Chocolate is the ULTIMATE health food.
It fights free radicals. It ranks among the top antioxidant-rich foods, beating black tea and red wine by miles. [1] It even has cancer-fighting potential. [2]
And it’s GREAT for your heart…
As long as you can remember to eat it EVERY SINGLE DAY.
A daily truffle—err, piece of dark chocolate—has the power to lower your blood pressure, keep blood flowing smoothly, and even help your cholesterol levels.
And that’s only the beginning.
A study found that chocolate can help elderly folks beginning to suffer from memory loss and cognitive decline.
Yes, chocolate is a brain food! Two cups of cocoa a day keep the mind sharp. [3]
Chocolate is a must if you’re pregnant. Eating just 1 ounce of chocolate a day can reduce the risk of preeclampsia and boost your little one’s growth and development.[4]
So that’s the good news…
And it’s VERY good news.
But along with all good news comes some bad.
The kind of chocolate that packs the most health-boosting benefits is not your everyday bar of Hershey’s or scoop of Nesquik.
It’s the RAW stuff.
How Chocolate Gets Ruined
By the time nutritious cacao beans make their way into processed foods—like a chocolate bar or a chocolate drink—they’ve been manhandled beyond recognition.
Roasted, ground, alkalized, adulterated with milk and sugar and who knows what.
All the goodness gets taken out.
Even though milk chocolate tastes delightful, it’s not a health food.
Milk and chocolate aren’t friends. Milk neutralizes chocolate’s free-radical-fighting force by binding itself to flavonoids, making them unavailable for use by the body.
You may think you’re safe by purchasing dark chocolate, but think again.
Dutch cocoa, with its rich taste, is even more processed than the regular stuff. It’s been alkalized, which reduces chocolate’s health benefits even further.
One study found that LESS THAN 20% of chocolate’s antioxidant power remains after processing. [5]
Which means that, if you want to treat chocolate as a health food, you’d better be ready to get bitter.
What Chocolate REALLY Tastes Like
Why do we love chocolate so much?
Is it just because it’s so sweet and creamy?
That sweetness is the result of added sugar. The creaminess is the result of added milk. Neither of which are very good for you.
Raw chocolate is neither sweet nor creamy. It’s called cacao, to distinguish it from its processed cousin cocoa.
And most people, even the most ardent chocolate lover, have NEVER tasted it before.
Isn’t that crazy?
You may not even know what real chocolate tastes like.
It’s like eating strawberry-flavor gummies and thinking that’s what real strawberries taste like.
Raw cacao beans don’t taste like you’d expect.
And they don’t really taste all that great. 🙁
Biting into one is kind of like taking a lick of vanilla extract.
You get a hint of that powerful flavor you love so much, but your face twists up because you don’t expect it to be so disgusting.
No one, not even the most ardent vanilla lover, could chug down a bottle of vanilla extract. It doesn’t taste nice until it’s been added to something—ideally, something creamy and sweet.
Similarly, it takes courage to chew on a handful of raw cacao nibs. They’re more palatable if you add them to something, like a smoothie or cereal.
But that’s the kind of chocolate you want to learn to like.
Get your head around the idea of bitter chocolate, and you don’t have to reserve chocolate for desert anymore.
Chocolate can be part of your breakfast, lunch or dinner.
Just like it is for Miranda Kerr.
Cacao: A Supermodel’s Health Food of Choice
Miranda Kerr is an Australian supermodel known for her commitment to healthy living. She has her own line of organic skincare and a book promoting positive thinking for teens.
And she loves chocolate.
Every morning, she throws a tablespoon of raw cacao into her morning smoothie. (Get the recipe.)
Raw cacao is cocoa powder made by cold-pressing unroasted cacao beans. It’s lighter in color but tastes just as delicious in your morning mocha or a chocolate cake.
Before discovering raw cacao, I rarely indulged in chocolate in my coffee. Now, I add a scoop of raw cacao to my coffee grounds in the morning. It intensifies the rich flavor—and I don’t even need sweetener to enjoy it.
Kerr isn’t the only supermodel to indulge in a daily dose of chocolate. Dark chocolate is the sweet treat of choice for models.
But, as good as a square of dark chocolate is, a handful of cacao nibs is better—better for you, at least.
Cacao nibs are chunks of roasted cacao beans. They’re one of the best superfoods around, full of iron and magnesium. But their taste?
Well, suffice to say they taste a bit like tree bark.
Many people use them in trail mix or granola bars. They can also work in place of chocolate chips for certain recipes. Just note that cacao nibs don’t melt and go gooey. Use them to add crunch instead.
So there you have it.
Feeling motivated to try some raw cacao?
Let us know how it goes in the comments!
P.S. Would you rather smother yourself in chocolate instead of eating it? Turns out cocoa powder is a common ingredient in homemade cosmetics and beauty products. It’s even in my dry hair shampoo recipe for brunettes!
[1] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Flavonoid-content-and-antioxidant-capacity-ORAC-of-milk-chocolate-and-dark-chocolate_fig2_7379974
[2] https://draxe.com/benefits-of-dark-chocolate/
[3] http://n.neurology.org/content/early/2013/08/07/WNL.0b013e3182a351aa
[4] https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/306103.php
[5] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5626833/
Let us know what you think!