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So what's all the fuss about? What exactly is 'raw' chocolate? Surely all chocolate is raw, right? Wrong. Prepare yourself for a crash course in this natural wonder that some are calling a 'superfood'.

Why not conventional commercial chocolate?

In today's world, the demand for chocolate and chocolate based confectionary is high and therefore, the processes must be short in order for supply to meet demand. To quicken this production process, rather than leaving these beans to naturally dry, cocoa beans are heated to very high temperatures, very quickly and this leads to the removal of all nutritional content, making the end product bitter to taste. To improve the taste, refined sugar is added, often in quantities that actually outweighs the cocoa content. To move the chocolate from it's dark, bitter-sweet taste to a more commercially understood sweet and silky taste, dried milk is added as well as more sugar until we have... milk chocolate varieties. White chocolate is just the cacao butter with sugar & milk, no cocoa powder.

What is it & where does it come from? The chocolate trail....

Chocolate comes from cacao beans. These are the seed of the plant 'Theobroma cacao', which grows in South America and Africa. The beans after being picked can now go through two processes. One produces what we know as 'conventional commercial' chocolate, and the other, a more natural process producing raw chocolate. Conventional commercial Chocolate is roasted most likely in a furness, ground down, pressed, mixed with fat and sugar and turned into what we know and associated as chocolate. Raw chocolate, on the other hand, does not undergo the intense heat of the roasting process. Instead, raw chocolate is left to dry naturally in temperatures that do not exceed 42 degrees - often this happens by leaving them in the heat of the sun which takes time. Even the temperatures of the grinding or handling machines must be kept below 42 degrees in order for the chocolate to be considered 'raw'.

Although dark chocolate does have a good name for itself as the healthier chocolate, it still has undergone the intensive process, impacting its nutritional content and quite likely to contain refined sugar. There are many differences, if you want to read all the differences between dark and raw chocolate, I found this great blog list: http://food.allwomenstalk.com/differences-between-raw-chocolate-and-dark-chocolate-everyone-needs-to-know
 
Why Choose Raw Cacao?

Nutritionally, there's a reason why many are calling this naturally occurring gem a 'superfood'. There are many benefits of eating raw chocolate, here's a few:

Other qualities:

As with most things raw, whole food or superfood, I am hugely enthusiastic about raw chocolate - as if you couldn't guess! The benefits are above and beyond that of commercial chocolate and any move away from refined sugar is a huge thumbs up from me. Not to mention, there are heaps of ways of cooking and creating the most delicious and nutritious foods that will really change your perspective on traditional confectionary and open your mind to a new way of thinking.


Chocolate Almond Smoothie

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