If You Really Want Healthy Chocolate

The regular readers of this blog are a savvy bunch. You may already know, when it comes to healthy chocolate, dark beats milk (duh), white chocolate is misnomer and you really want to go for 70% or higher cocoa content. After all, the more cocoa the less sugar, milk solids and other fillers involved. All that is true but that’s not where the chocolate story ends.

If chocolate is like skiing, milk chocolate is a green/easy run; it’s not too intense and most people can do it. Dark chocolate, maybe 50%, is a blue run, a little bit of a step up but your heart will not pound. Serious dark chocolate 70, 80% is black diamond a challenge and an adrenaline rush with more interesting terrain. If you’re a highly skilled skier you may want more, you may ski through the trees or heli ski.

If you’re a fervent fan of chocolate and want the tree skiing equivalent, you really want your chocolate to be raw. Most chocolate is roasted and when cacao is cooked it looses some of its punch. Raw cacao is a more powerful antioxidant than red wine or green tea. Raw chocolate has vitamin C and fiber, it’s also much higher in phenylethylamines which are the reason chocolate has an aphrodisiac reputation. So if you’re thinking of chocolate for Valentines Day, I’d select raw, just saying.

To take the plunge, some great raw options are:

Fearless Chocolate

My friend Jen Goodman Linn’s blog was YouFearless.com and her mantra was "be fearless". I sent this chocolate to Jen when she was sick, I’m not sure she ate it but she told me her husband Dave chowed down after a day of bad news. My team for Cycle for Survival received this chocolate with their team shirts. We’ll cycle fearlessly.

Fearless chocolate comes in a Super Seed flavor with flax and chia seed. I’m excited to try both Exploding Coconuts and Matcha Peppermint flavors. All chocolate is raw, organic and kosher;  it pretty much fits all criteria. If Marc wants to get me a present the “Eat Me Subscription” for monthly chocolate (I reworded that many times and it sounds wrong in any order) would be perfect.

Raaka

One of our local favorites is Brooklyn based Raaka. Raaka calls its products “virgin chocolate”, these chocolate makers seem to have dirty minds. My favorite Raaka flavor is Vanilla Rooibos. Their packaging is beautiful and I’m eyeing the heartbreaker set: Café Grumpy coffee and Raaka chocolate, can’t get better.

And there are times when you don’t want to go full throttle (and I get that). We don’t need to ski in the trees every day. For a chocolate fix that all about comfort, yet still black diamond, there’s

Newtree. 

This is pretty much healthy nutella, It’s a 70% dark chocolate spread that’s low in calories and has some fiber. Have it on fruit or on crackers or on a spoon with walnut or pistachio butter. Heaven.

Do you prefer skiing or chocolate? What’s your favorite brand or variety? Are you a raw chocolate/tree skiing type?
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