Chocolate Is Healthy

While there is an increasing number of vegan and fair trade chocolatiers, there are fewer making raw chocolate bars.   It’s an expensive and labor intensive process that leads to very high price tags.

The Village Voice profiled two relatively new raw chocolate bars, both based in Brooklyn, New York.  One is “Bean to Bar” by Jacques Torres.  The other is the lesser-known Mast Brothers who make gorgeously-packaged from-scratch artisan chocolate bars.  We are delighted that attention is being given to the nuances as raw chocolate.  Just as there is tremendous variety within processed dark chocolate bars, raw chocolate bars can vary significantly in flavor and depth.

Here’s where the article netted out:

“Both bars, in other words, offered completely different experiences, and beauty that was very much in the eye of the beholder. The Masts and Torres are doing excellent work, so calling one better than the other based solely upon taste does a disservice both to them and to the highly subjective reactions that chocolate inspires. If you want a more bitter, idiosyncratic bar, you want the Masts. If you want a smoother, more comforting bar, then go for the Torres.”

Battle of the Dishes: Bean to Bar Chocolate Bars From Jacques Torres and Mast Brothers – New York Restaurants and Dining – Fork in the Road.

Little did we know that such a great, interesting debate was taking place on the subject of chocolate milk until we came across the site of Chef Ann Cooper, Renegade Lunch Lady.

According to many, including the National Dairy Council, white milk is healthy.  But chocolate milk?   The organization seems to think so.  However, the chocolate “flavoring” in chocolate milk amounts to a considerable amount of added sugar, and certainly none of the health benefits we’ve come to learn about from chocolate.   Chef Ann Cooper in Boulder, Colorado managed to get chocolate milk banned from schools.  Since the sugar in chocolate milk can lead to unhealthy weight gain in children, as well as obesity and diabetes, this seems to make a lot of sense.  Yet this is an unpopular sentiment, at least among some celebrities and the National Dairy Council who suggest chocolate milk is just as healthy as white milk.

Here’s the pro-chocolate milk stance:

“Chocolate milk lovers worldwide dismiss the anti-chocolate milk sentiment as something between an annoyance and an assault on baseball and apple pie. “Kids drink it,” they keep saying, “kids like it.” The subtext: otherwise they’d drink something like Sunny Delight, or soda, with 20 to 25 teaspoons of sugar per eight-ounce serving (and, typically consumed in 12-ounce portions). And the nutrients in milk, including calcium, Vitamin A and potassium, are among those which are often deficient among children.”

Chef Ann Cooper : Renegade Lunch Lady » Great Blog on Chocolate Milk!.

There’s still time to offer healthy, organic Halloween chocolate treats, instead of the unnatural processed candy found in the supermarket.

We came across this great roundup of all natural Halloween treats.  Options include fair trade certified chocolate coins from Ghana, Clif Spooky S’mores Energy Bars, organic gluten-free chocolates from Equal Exchange and vegan Bluestocking peanut butter cups.  Any of these will deliver the delights of chocolate, without the additives and preservatives.

6 Healthier Halloween Eco-Treats for Kids (No Tricks, We Promise!) | Inhabitots.

Have you ever dreamed of being a chocolatier?  Treehugger posted a great review of the Navitas Naturals Organic Chocolate Kit.  This looks like a fantastic gift for the chocolate lover with delicious results. And, Navitas Naturals Chocolate Kits are 100% organic, kosher, vegan, gluten-free, and raw.

The DIY chocolate kit requires no special equipment. The process involves some simple slicing, melting, mixing and freezing, and your chocolates are done in minutes!

The kit contains all organic, raw superfoods including premium cacao, maca, lucuma and mesquite.

Here’s an excerpt from the review:

“All I needed was two smallish bowls, a spoon, a knife, and ice cube tray. Shave and stir, drop in the super berries, pour into ice tray molds, slide into the freezer to set. Within minutes (just like the box promised). Pop them out and there were a dozen perfect little dark chocolate candies. Move out of the way, Whitman’s. Forget, Frangos. So long, Sees. And bye-bye to pre-packaged natural equivalents.

For ten bucks and ten minutes, you, too, can be a chocolatier. No one will guess it’s so easy. As I said, I’m predisposed to chocolate, so when I taste tested one and liked it, and gobbled another, I recognized my bias. The chocolate tasting party would be the judges. “You made these!?” they exclaimed.”

DIY Superfood Chocolates: Good and Good for You, Too? : TreeHugger.

We love finding new ideas for healthy chocolate gifts. Vegan and fair trade, Nicobella chocolates use organic ingredients such as sunflower seed butter, oat milk and fair trade dark chocolate, creating blissful chocolate assortments.  Flavors include walnut flaxseed crunch, sunflower banana butter and ginger green tea.   (The walnut flaxseed was a clear favorite in the review we found below).

“Created by dietitian, nutritionist and yoga instructor Nichole Dandrea, nicobella truffles are made with 70 percent dark chocolate — fair trade, of course — and slightly sweetened with agave nectar and brown rice syrup. Open the package and you’ll be able to identify the flavor of each truffle by the decorative garnish. The Ginger Green Tea truffle, for example, is sprinkled with a green tea powder; the Blueberry Almond truffle has a piece of almond pressed onto a corner.

How do the truffles taste? My favorite of the six is the most crunchy-sounding of the bunch: Walnut Flaxseed Crunch. This decadent truffle had a perfect nutty creaminess — full of Omega-3s, to boot. I also loved the Pumpkin Chia truffle, which tasted like a rich, flavorful pie covered in chocolate, and the Ginger Green Tea truffle, which had a fierce ginger kick that made it the most intense of the six.”

Chocolate truffles made vegan, organic, fair trade and tasty!