Raw chocolate – the health benefits boasting sweet treat

I’m a huge fan of chocolate. And even better is the idea that I can prepare it myself using best ingredients and avoiding white sugar is just amazing. Raw cacao has lots of health benefits, for example:

🔥 high in antioxidants (ORAC value 98000/ 100 g!)

🔥 high in magnesium

🔥 160 mg potassium per 100 g

🔥 a good source of serotonin and tryptophan, thus it can give a great mood boost

🔥 thanks to high amount of teobromin, it dilates vessels and can help lower high blood pressure

🔥can decrease bloatedness because it’s anti-inflammatory and has diuretic properties

As raw cacao is a powerful food, it’s advised to consume it moderately. Lots of cacao can bring your daily calories too high. Also for a person who’s very sensitive to caffeine, the stimulating effect of cacao can be too much. I’d also avoid having it late at night so that it doesn’t ruin your peaceful sleep.

Here is my quick and easy raw chocolate recipe.

Raw chocolate with dates and pecans (approx. 180 g chocolate)

• 50 g cacao butter
• 25 g erythritol for low carbohydrate sweetening (can be replaced with stevia – or coconut sugar if you accept more carbohydrates)
• 45 g raw cacao powder
• 12 g carob powder (or lucuma powder)
• 3 g vanilla extract (or a pinch of real vanilla seeds)
• decoration:
• 2-3 big, soft organic dates
• coconut flakes
• 10 pecan nuts
• pinch of unprocessed good quality salt (eg. himalayan or grey sea salt)

Melt the cacao butter in a bowl on top of a casserole filled with boiled water. Make sure to not get any water to the butter or it will ruin the consistency. Mix in well all other ingredients. Sweeten to taste. Pour the chocolate batter into molds made of silicone. Decoration: sink pieces of dates into the chocolates and cover with coconut flakes and pecans.

Freeze the mold for an hour and then move it to the fridge to for 30 minutes after serving. Keep it stored it in the fridge.