Choosing the Best Chocolate for the Best Health Benefits

Almost daily in the news we see reports of chocolate’s health ben­e­fits. It’s a potent antiox­i­dant, and is chock-full of chem­i­cals and nutri­ents that have been attrib­uted to mak­ing us happy. Yet many of us remain skep­ti­cal; eat­ing lots of choco­late doesn’t seem to make us feel bet­ter, and in fact can lower energy lev­els for awhile. So what gives? If choco­late is such a mir­a­cle food, shouldn’t we be able to eat it all the time, with­out guilt and feel great? Well, yes, we can, but the way choco­late is pre­pared is cru­cial to unlock­ing its true poten­tial as a health food. If you’d like to learn how to have a healthy dose of choco­late daily, read on…

It hap­pens that the some­what con­tro­ver­sial ‘raw food­ists’ are right on the mark with this one: it’s raw, unroasted, unprocessed choco­late that’s the real health food. Really, it’s not even called choco­late, but Cacao — choco­late is the name for the roasted, fat and sugar added prod­uct that Willy Wonka makes. (But for the fun of it, we’ll keep call­ing it choco­late. In the long run, it’s cool to think you’ve added ‘eat­ing choco­late’ to the list of things you do daily that are good for you.) One needs to be care­ful, too, as raw choco­late is rel­a­tively hard to come by. Pricey organic hot cocoa is still roasted and alka­lized, chang­ing chocolate’s chem­istry sig­nif­i­cantly enough to war­rant lim­it­ing its intake. You can get raw choco­late online, and it’s slowly find­ing its way onto store shelves. Make sure it says ‘raw’ or ‘cacao’ (pro­nounce ‘Ka-’, as in cat, ‘cow’) and not ‘cocoa’, and should have no other ingre­di­ents (though some actual raw choco­late ‘candy’ can be found in very hip health food stores). Got it? If you still need a lit­tle con­vinc­ing, here’s a quick look at the dif­fer­ence between raw and processed choco­lates to help you make the switch — then on to a few recipes.

First the ques­tion of Caf­feine. Many folks are sen­si­tive to caf­feine’s effect on their ner­vous sys­tem. It raises blood pres­sure, short­ens tem­pers and keeps peo­ple awake. And we all know choco­late has caf­feine in it, right? But what form is it in? Research done by home­opaths indi­cates a sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence on the stim­u­lat­ing effects of choco­late depend­ing on whether it’s been heated or not. A drink made with roasted choco­late evoked excite­ment of the ner­vous sys­tem that did not occur with unroasted choco­late. Alter­ation of chem­i­cal struc­tures through heat is com­mon, and occurs in the case of choco­late. The roast­ing process involves heat­ing the beans between 250 and 350 degrees F for 30 min­utes to 2 hours. Anec­do­tal reports of indi­vid­u­als mov­ing from cof­fee or yerba mate as their morn­ing drink to a cup of hot choco­late report gen­tle stim­u­lat­ing effects with­out anx­i­ety, as their other drinks had pro­duced. Even very sen­si­tive peo­ple who do not do well with any form of caf­feine report pos­i­tive results with raw choco­late; noth­ing at all like the effects pro­duced by cof­fee or caf­feinated teas.

Next the ques­tion of anti-oxidants. Choco­late has been dis­cov­ered to have excep­tion­ally high quan­ti­ties of impor­tant polyphe­nols. A study pub­lished in the Jour­nal of Agri­cul­ture and Food Chem­istry was titled: “Cocoa Has More Phe­no­lic Phy­to­chem­i­cals and Higher Antiox­i­dant Capac­ity than Teas and Red Wine.” It’s hard to argue with that. Here again the ques­tion of raw arises: One report notes that while roasted choco­late is made up of five-percent antiox­i­dants, raw choco­late con­tains twice as much at ten per­cent. Another impor­tant note is the addi­tion of milk to make milk choco­late. Research has shown that the addi­tion of milk actu­ally cancels-out the pos­i­tive effects of chocolate’s antiox­i­dants. And milk may be one of the rea­sons many peo­ple seem to be aller­gic to choco­late, as lac­tose intol­er­ance is fairly com­mon. Another choco­late myth is some indi­vid­u­als break out when ingest­ing high amounts; reports indi­cate that raw choco­late does not cause this response, and that it may be the refined fats and sug­ars present in most choco­late prod­ucts pro­duc­ing this effect.

Finally, the ques­tion of mood-enhancing neu­ro­chem­i­cals and pre­cur­sors. Choco­late con­tains sig­nif­i­cant quan­ti­ties of the essen­tial amino acid tryp­to­phan. Tryp­to­phan intake has recently been col­lated with neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis, the devel­op­ment of new brain cells, and both long and short term mem­ory. The pres­ence of tryp­to­phan is crit­i­cal for the pro­duc­tion of sero­tonin, a pri­mary neu­ro­trans­mit­ter asso­ci­ated with mood (Prozac works on the prin­ci­pal of enhanc­ing the action of sero­tonin). Once in the body tryp­to­phan reacts with vit­a­mins B6 and B3 in the pres­ence of mag­ne­sium (all present in raw choco­late) to pro­duce sero­tonin. Enhanced sero­tonin func­tion assists in dimin­ish­ing anx­i­ety and stress — ccord­ing to Dr. Gabriel Cousens, sero­tonin is lit­er­ally our “stress-defense shield.” Tryp­to­phan is heat sen­si­tive and is often defi­cient in many cooked-food diets, even when ani­mal pro­tein intake is high. In addi­tion to tryp­to­phan (but not heat sen­si­tive) choco­late also con­tains PEA, the ‘love hor­mone’ and Anan­damide the ‘bliss chemical’.

Con­vinced? Ready for a lit­tle raw choco­late power? First its crit­i­cal to find a good source; make sure the choco­late you’re buy­ing is raw — it’s most often labeled as ‘Cacao’, the name for the raw choco­late beans and the tree on which they grow. Cacao nibs are small pieces of pure raw choco­late that can be eaten straight, or mixed with other healthy snacks like dried fruits. But the best-loved raw choco­late prepa­ra­tion is the orig­i­nal choco­late drink: hot choco­late. Now it won’t be hot enough for long enough to con­vert any chem­i­cals or to cook the choco­late, just to make it a warm com­fort­ing drink — and of course, heat­ing the water isn’t nec­es­sary at all (though in recipes call­ing for Coconut oil, it helps to blend the oil into the drink). So to make a cup, use pow­dered raw choco­late (grind­ing the nibs or beans in a cof­fee grinder can work, though you’ll find this chal­leng­ing as the nat­ural oils in the choco­late will heat up and liq­uefy before the grind­ing is com­plete, leav­ing lit­tle crunchy bits). Put one or two table­spoons pow­dered choco­late, one to two tea­spoons raw dark agave nec­tar (a low-glycemic index nat­ural sweet­ner) and one to two tea­spoons of Coconut oil in a blender. Add eight to twelve ounces almost-boiling water and blend for ten sec­onds. That’s it! You’ll find your per­sonal favorite for­mula after a few prepa­ra­tions — more or less choco­late, oil, sweet­ener or water.

There are many, many recipes avail­able online and in books about raw choco­late. Some favorite addi­tions to the drink are Maca, cin­na­mon, toco­pherols (a form of Vit­a­min E), and for the truly hard core, blue green algae and spir­ulina. Your own raw choco­late bars are very easy to make, really just by omit­ting the water and adjust­ing the oil and sweet­ener ratios to make a thick choco­late paste. Add some chopped nuts if you like, press into a casse­role dish and put it in the refrig­er­a­tor long enough to make it firm. Exper­i­ment; it’s choco­late! You’re sup­posed to have fun. And with raw choco­late, it might be the most fun you can have eat­ing while pos­i­tively ben­e­fit­ing your health.

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