Chocolate Is Healthy

We found this killer list of delicious chocolate gifts including bars, truffles and even chocolate spa treatments.   While we can’t say that every item on this list is healthy, there are some wonderful options either on their own or to create a chocolate gift basket.

Here are a couple of our healthier chocolate favorites:

Alter Eco Dark Cacao Chocolate

“Alter-Eco is a San Francisco based gourmet food company that offers a full line of Fair Trade gourmet chocolate. The ingredients used in the chocolates are sourced from marginalized farming cooperatives in the global south – providing fair wages, direct trade and funding for community development, scholarships, women’s empowerment programs and more. The company offers a unique variety of chocolate bars crafted with passion by a master chocolatier in Switzerland from all natural ingredients and Fair Trade Certified ingredients. Alter-Eco’s Dark Cacao Chocolate blends a fine dark chocolate (73% cocoa) with crunchy nibs of roasted Organic cacao beans—the perfect balance of bitter and sweet! The chocolate is both Fair Trade Certified and USDA certified organic. To make this chocolate, Alter-Eco uses the finest ingredients harvested by the members of the El Ceibo cooperative located in the heart of the Bolivian Amazon who use sustainable farming methods that preserve the local agricultural biodiversity. www.altereco-usa.com

Navitas Naturals Make-Your-Own Organic Chocolate Superfood Kits

Navitas Naturals is making it easy for people to bring home the art of chocolate making with their innovative new Organic Superfood Chocolate Kits. Available in three delicious organic superfood varieties – Goji Berry, Cacao Nib and Goldenberry. Each fun and unique Kit creates 12 organic chocolates. Navitas Naturals Organic Superfood Chocolate Kits are full of healthy antioxidants, and these treats can be prepared in just minutes. In addition to the Kit ingredients, the only other items needed to complete the easy recipe are a knife, a small bowl, a large bowl and an ice cube tray. Each Organic Superfood Chocolate Kit contains raw: organic cacao butter, organic cacao powder, organic mesquite, organic lucuma, organic maca and the specific organic superfood which is featured in the chewy center of the chocolates (Goji Berry, Cacao nib, or Goldenberry).”

Chocolate Gifts – Chocolate Gift Guide for 2009.

Here are 5 of our favorite chocolate makers who offer minimally-processed, organic and fair-trade chocolates.  Each one has stunningly unique and interesting flavors while being socially responsible. read more »

As we repeatedly profess, raw, organic chocolate is the healthiest and most nutritionally-rich form of chocolate. Other types of chocolate?  Well, let’s just say the benefits take the form of satisfaction and taste, rather than health value.

With so many other types of chocolate appearing on supermarket shelves, here’s an overview of chocolates and their uses.  In general, the less processed the chocolate is, the more nutrition it contains. read more »

Can we really eat dark chocolate for health? The last couple of years have seen magazines, television and the internet inundated the health benefits, or lack thereof, of eating dark chocolate. The problem with most of these is that they place all dark chocolate into one group, which is a dangerous assumption. If you go to the grocery and load up on Hershey’s Special Dark, expecting to eat a bar a day, lower your blood pressure and lose weight, you are likely to be severely disappointed. If you choose your dark chocolate wisely, you are likely to be very pleased with the results.

First of all, as with all foods, pay attention to the ingredient and nutrition list. If there’s more refined sugar than cocoa, then there’s probably not a lot of benefit there. The sad truth is that most commercial chocolate bars contain very little actual chocolate, and with truth in advertising should only be billed as chocolate flavored. The type of fat that is used to make the chocolate creamy is also important. If it’s not cocoa butter, then consider it inferior. Most commercial chocolate uses vegetable oils, or even waxes, to give the impression of “creaminess” when it’s actually just a slick oily or waxy effect. Even if they use milk fat, which does give it a nice creaminess, the milk fat carries it’s own set of health risks. Once you have eaten good quality dark chocolate that uses only cocoa butter as fat, you will easily tell the difference when you go back to the inferior chocolate. The type of sweetener used is also very important. Preferably you find a natural, unrefined sweetener such as raw cane sugar or other organic sugar. These natural sweeteners do not spike blood sugar in the way refined sugars do.

So, if you just love chocolate and want to eat it purely for pleasure, have no weight or health concerns, and are not into the “all natural” movement, then just go out there and buy what tastes good to you. But, if you are serious about reaping the health benefits of chocolate or have a specific health challenge you would like to address with this natural healer, then the most important factor of consuming it is that it be raw, natural, unprocessed. And even most quality chocolate companies use processed, alkalized and roasted cocoa. This processing strips up to 80% of the natural nutrition that cocoa starts with, but makes it easier to use less quality ingredients and still have something people will eat. Lets face it, 100% all natural cocoa is bitter beyond what most people are willing to tolerate. It’s certainly not what most of us think of as “decadent”. Only a few companies are trying it, and even fewer are succeeding. If you’ve already heard this and have been busily sampling the “organic” and “antioxidant” choices on your store shelves, you have discovered that. I know I have. If I had back the money spent on the bars I’ve bought, only to ditch them after the first bite, well, I’d be at least a little richer. So I try to spend my chocolate dollars wisely to get the most bang for my buck. I buy chocolate that uses cold pressed cocoa and all natural ingredients, preferably mixed with fruits and berries as sweeteners and cocoa butter for creaminess. And I have seen the benefits of doing this reflected in my health.

For more information on what makes chocolate truly healthy, ask the expert, Dr. Steve Warren, at http://mydrchocolate.com