How to Choose a Healthy Chocolate Bar

Chocolate is one of the most loved and at the same time, most vilified foods.

All chocolate products start off as something natural because they come from cocoa beans, the fermented ground seeds from the fruit of the theobroma cacao tree.

For thousands of years, indigenous people like the Mayans used raw cacao to prepare a bitter-tasting frothy beverage to provide them with calories and boost their energy.

Laboratory analysis shows that there are over 25,000 disease-fighting antioxidants in a single spoon of raw cocoa powder. Unprocessed raw cocoa has an ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) value of 28,000 per 100 grams. The higher the ORAC score of a food, the higher the antioxidant content.

Modern day processing, however, robs chocolate of its potency. Because raw cacao is very bitter and almost unpalatable by itself, food manufacturers load their commercial chocolate with sugar and other unhealthy ingredients like artificial sweeteners, high fructose corn syrup, MSG (monosodium glutamate), preservatives, stabilizers, soy proteins and trans fat, among others, to improve the taste and texture of their chocolate bars and other products.

So is it still possible to find truly healthy chocolate?

If you love eating chocolates, natural health expert Dr. Joseph Mercola has provided these guidelines to help you choose a healthy chocolate bar:

1. Look for chocolate made using the least destructive processing methods. Too much processing reduces or even depletes the chocolate’s nutrient content and can introduce lead contamination. Organic is your best bet.
2. Go for organic dark chocolate. Chocolate which is closest to its original raw state (unprocessed cacao) will provide you with the best and most health benefits.
3. Avoid milk chocolate. Adding milk or milk byproducts significantly reduces chocolate’s ORAC score.
4. Choose chocolate with the lowest sugar content. Sugar is one of the biggest obstacles to good health.

If you’re looking for healthy chocolate, you can’t go wrong with Dr. Mercola’s New and Improved Cocoa Cassava Bars. One of Dr. Mercola’s bestselling recommended products, this natural health bar is now USDA-certified organic and now features a new formula, with the main ingredients being:

1. organic cassava flour
2. organic unsweetened coconut
3. organic raw chia seeds
4. organic dark chocolate
5. organic cacao powder

Combined, these five form a delicious and nutritious chocolate natural energy bar. The cocoa cassava bar is also a good meal replacement bar because it contains a healthy balance of carbohydrates, fats, fiber and protein to give you an instant energy boost and satisfy your hunger at any given time during the day.

Chocolate will only be bad for you if you eat the wrong kind and consume too much, even if you’re eating organic dark chocolate. Always eat in moderation to get the most out of chocolate’s health benefits. The new and improved cocoa cassava bars will be available soon at Mercola.com so keep posted!

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