I mentioned recently that I'm avoiding cacao at the moment, on the advice of the ND and in recognition of my body's own response to it. I've been learning that it pays to do as the ND says - but - it seems awfully unfair that the one thing that really interests my taste buds also jolts my adrenals in a bad way and builds itself into an addiction whenever I eat it regularly. I've now gone through several cycles of eating it regularly, noticing addiction, starting to experience physical symptoms (like sleeplessness and skin irritation) and made myself quit it completely. There have also been times when I've been able to 'stay on top of it,' being very strict with myself about only eating it a few times a week, only eating it in the morning, etc. I'm hoping that eventually my adrenals will recover to the point that I can eat cacao with impunity, but the ND says not to hold my breath for that! (Even raw cacao? 'Fraid so. Although I do notice that the nibs (the whole bean, fat and all) have less impact than the powder (concentrated, minus the fat).
What to do, then? If you don't have a major adrenal issue, the very best advice is that given by Christian, to have your cacao with other superfoods that balance it out. Reishi powder, maca, algae - they all taste great together too. When I do have cacao, I always do that.
But if you have to avoid it completely, until you are recovered to the point that you can experiment to see how much bending of this rule your body can handle - ;) - here are some strategies and recipes!
One strategy is to remove chocolate from the picture altogether. The first three or four years I was into raw foods, there was no raw chocolate and everyone seemed to manage! There are so many other delicious flavors. For some, it's all about the berries and fruits. For others, like myself, the spices are where it's at (and isn't it interesting that both berries and spices are super-high in antioxidants?) I love making barks and cookies with lots of cinnamon, ginger and my favorite cardamom. Nutmeg is great too. And although mint chocolate is unbeatable, mint by itself is a wonderful flavor. Mint with lots of spirulina and chlorella pleases the eye with the minty green and pleases the body with all that wonderful chlorophyll and protein. Somehow, if you can find other things that are delicious to your taste buds and nourishing to your body, it doesn't seem as much of a hardship.
But what about when everyone is eating chocolate, when it seems like chocolate is coming out at you everywhere you look? What about when, no matter how much you remove your energy from it, it comes looking for you - whether through a habitual hankering at certain times of the month or the evocation of a social custom of sharing? Part of my playing in the kitchen yesterday was to find some answers to this.
Well, the first piece of good news is that cacao butter has none of the caffeine in it - that's all in the powder.
Cacao butter tastes wonderfully chocolatey and provides that special mouth-feel, because it is mostly a (good) saturated fat and its melting point is right around the human body temperature! For myself, I'll probably use cacao butter in combination with coconut oil for the most part, because coconut oil is what my body 'needs.' But just a little cacao butter will give that flavor and texture, and increase the melting point a bit too.
Next up - Carob! Wait! Don't dismiss this out of hand!
Yes, I know, I hate it when people say that carob is a substitute for chocolate - because I don't think it's fair on carob! I love carob - even feel an affinity for it as a fellow-transplant from the Mediterranean. But I'm the first to say it tastes nothing like chocolate. It's also much lower in fat, which means higher in carbs, which is less optimal for me. However, it's super-high in calcium (so could be said to balance magnesium-rich cacao).
Even though carob is not chocolate and does not taste like chocolate, in combination with cacao butter and the next ingredient I'm going to talk about, it does offer the color and texture of chocolate without the caffeine, and (if you like carob on its own merits) adds a special, sharply-sweet flavor of its own. (Note: I've been using toasted carob because I haven't been able to get hold of raw carob, and toasted carob has a much finer texture and flavor. I'm ok with this in small quantities.)
Imagine taking chocolate and distilling it to an essence, and then being able to take a drop of that and evoke the whole thrill of chocolate. Well, that's what the folks at Medicine Flower claim to have done with their dark chocolate flavor extract
It's a bit expensive and I was skeptical, especially having tried chocolate flavored stevia and liked it, but not as a 'real chocolate' flavor. But I'd seen good reviews of this flavor essence, and got some to try.
Yes, it's very concentrated indeed! On the side of the bottle, it recommends using one part essence to 10,000 parts finished product! That's a lot of zeroes. Trying a drop on the tongue is just overwhelming. Unfortunately, the dropper 'drops' by itself, without you even squeezing the bulb, so it's good to ensure that the dropper is almost empty before removing it from the bottle, if you don't want waste/overwhelm.
In water, it definitely imparts a chocolate flavor - but not a full-bodied, full-on chocolate. That's what you need the fat for!
So, my theory was that using cacao butter, a few drops of this flavor essence, and carob for color and binding would make a decent chocolate replacement. I tried it out to make a no-sugar version of Larabar's 'German Chocolate Cake' 
- a bar I've only tried once but have had a hankering for ever since.
- a bar I've only tried once but have had a hankering for ever since. 
My challenge was to use only the ingredients listed in the bar plus my substitutions. The ingredients are: dates (I subbed chia-sweet), pecans, almonds, shredded coconut, virgin coconut oil (I used vco plus a little cacao butter), cocoa powder (I used a little carob).
I know that for the larabar, the dates predominate: it's about two parts dates to one part nuts. So I made two cups of chia-sweet from water, two teaspoons white stevia and about three drops of dark chocolate essence.
Whoops - I ran out of chia seeds! This gel has only 5 tablespoons of chia - seven or eight would have been optimal to make it really thick…
Here's the chia-sweet mixed with the melted coconut oil and cacao butter, with the ground-up (soaked and dehydrated) pecans, almonds and shredded coconut going in.
And here it is with the addition of the carob. With the slightly gloopy chia-sweet, it looked like a big chocolate pudding - and tasted like one too!
Here it is going onto trays to be dried out. I gave it a couple hours in the oven on lowest setting with the door open, because it was so wet, and then went back to my fan contraption. By this morning, I had delicious no-sugar cookies! I made them flatter than I'd prefer, because I was worried about drying, but this was the first time! Next time, I'll have more chia seeds (I ordered them already) and will probably add some flax meal too.
So, delicious, no sugar, no chocolate, full of good things!
And while I was at it, and since I've been feeling inspired by other bloggers, I also made the beautiful Twins' tahini bars! How's this for serendipity - they mentioned those bars in their blog yesterday too!
Yes, I own no mixing bowls, I mix and serve in our baking pans...
Again, I subbed chia-sweet (I had some in the fridge) for their date paste, omitted the cacao nibs and used extra shredded coconut (with the chocolate essence, the chia almost feels like chocolate chips), and made the topping with coconut oil, cacao butter, carob and vanilla. I didn't make it look nearly as pretty as they do, but the taste is just to die for! I adore carob and tahini together - they are both squarely in the middle of that nostalgic Mediterranean spot that I hit with Lisa's dal yesterday too! I also love that the omega 3-rich chia-sweet balances out the tahini, which is heavily omega-6.
Enjoy - I hope you have a beautiful day.
