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Ever heard: “Dark chocolate is healthier, but raw cacao is healthiest?” Well, it’s true! The health benefits of dark, organic chocolate are well known above the commercial chocolate products (made from dried, roasted, and processed cacao beans), but even fewer consumers know of the immeasurable health benefits of cacao in its purest form—chocolate minus the milk. Healthier than pure dark chocolate which under high temperatures has lost plenty of its mood-enhancing agents and nutritious flavors, raw cacao deemed most healthy in recent years thanks to the unveiling of realities regarding over-processed milk chocolates packed thick with stabilizing agents, additives and waxes. “Raw cacao is the ultimate return to chocolate as medicine,” says Vanessa Barg of Gnosis chocolates, emphasizing the quality of minerals lost when something is cooked.
Raw organic cacao, whose beans, found in the fruit of an evergreen tree that grows in the West Indies and South America is undergoing serious revival in America today. Used by the Mayans and the Aztec for celebration and worship, one raw cacao bean is made of 2.2 percent phenylethylamine, the “love and sex” chemical and contains other neurotransmitters that enhance human moods, joy, creativity and imagination. Magnesium, theobromine and “good fats” are also present in raw cacao, which prevent cardiovascular disease, suppress appetite, and stimulate humans naturally without being abrasive to the stomach, like other kinds. “Gnosis” company, has implemented this knowledge of raw, nutrition and environmentalism. Savory herb-infused truffles such as Almond Fig Spice, Cashew Goji Cherry, the bestselling Super Chocbar and a most recent SpringChoc contain unique blends of essential oils and raw, pure cacao bases: Jasmine, Ginkgo biloba, gotu kola, fresh mint, lavender leaves, lemongrass, Himalayan salt and manna blue green algae are among the medicinal constituents present in her nationwide hit chocolate bars.
Gnosis company philanthropically too, donates 10% of its profits to FTPF, The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation, a charity dedicated maintaining healthy ecological environments around the world, uses recyclable packaging and hand-makes all of their chocolate bars. So while dark chocolate temptresses, like Jaques Torres, Vosges, or Godiva employ mass factory machines to manufacture milky, sugar-packed herbless chocolate, Gnosis employs loving humans to produce bars free of milk, sugar, and additives. Agave nectar a cactus derived sweetener takes the place of sugar, and cacao butter provides the milky texture provided in commercial brands. Fat free, gluten free and medicinally sound, raw chocolate herbal truffles’ success mark the new wave of chocolate, today.
In short, eating raw chocolate bars (1) contributes wholesomely to the whole health, nourishing physical, psychological and emotional human dimensions and (2) participates ecologically to the preservation, maintenance and cultivations of life-sustaining orchards, plants and trees around the world.
