Chocolate - it's a love hate relationship
In the perfect world, there would be no limit to the amount of chocolate we could eat.
In an ideal gastronomic world, we would all start our meals with pudding first, guiltlessly heave an extra lump of sugar into our tea and hoover every last piece of our leftover grease-seeping steak gristle.
But in an even better world, there would be no limit to the amount of chocolate we could eat.
Oh yes, because chocolate is the food we all love to hate. Whether it's in soporific liquid form at the bottom of a mug, carved into the shape of a Disney character or draped and solidified over a long bar of caramel and nougat orange-scented nuttiness, it is the trustworthy safety blanket each and every one of us flies under when a cuddle or a dash of alcohol just won't work. But after the enjoyable first few bites go down, there's no stopping the temptation to over-indulge and it isn't long until after the Mars Bar falls down a throat, that its conqueror follows head-first down their own vortex of deep guilt.
So is there such thing as a healthy alternative? Eschew the commercial, sugar-intensive type of chocolate – the newsagent-friendly brands we all know a little too well. Opt instead every time for the high percentage, dark type whose bittersweet flavour after only one bite, nutritionists state (and I can confirm), will sate the appetite of any sweet-tooth sufferer. Allegedly good for the heart, and a boost to one's mood, remember then that the darker the variety, (Valrhona
Help is at hand, it seems. Enter the American radical, Xocai. It joins Choxi+ on the I-promise-I'm-good-for-you-shelf and claims that by cold pressing cocoa beans, rather than heating them, their choc is low-fat, low in sugar and abundantly full of minerals and antioxidants that other normal chocolate lacks. Such is its success, that over the pond people have taken to the television holding the gargantuan-sized trousers now too small for their wiry bodies, crediting Xocai for the incredible amount of weight loss. Perhaps a bit too good to be true, but it would go some way into relieving the culpability associated with over-eating. And who knows? It may even start you on a completely different indulgence. Raisin, anyone?
Also worth your attention:
Wondering if Xocai Chocolate is a Scam?
Interview with Vanessa Barg, Creatrix of Gnosis Chocolate - raw chocolate
Valrhona Le Noir Bloc Couverture 1kg
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