By Lauren Incarnato, Student Nutritionist Walk through any grocery store, convenience store, or retail store and you are bound to see some kind of chocolate. White chocolate, dark chocolate, milk chocolate, chocolate covered pretzals...I could sincerely go on forever. While chocolate is a great treat to have, it has been drilled into our heads at a young age not to "spoil our dinner" with chocolate or "rot our teeth." We all consume chocolate in moderation because well, it's inevitable not to. What if I told you there was a type of chocolate that had crazy health benefits? Would you believe me? Probably not. BUT, I am here to tell you about that exact thing today, and it is called cacao. You may think I just misspelled cocoa which is what I thought when I first found out what cacao was. Cacao is where cocoa comes from. It refers to the Theobroma Cacao tree where cocoa is derived from. Regular cocoa goes through "dutch processing" which strips 60-90% of the antioxidants that the original cacao has. Since cacao is taken straight from the tree, there is essentially no processing done and it is in extremely pure form. One of the best things about cacao is that it is a superfood. The term "superfood" refers to a food that is extremely high in antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, and more. Cacao contains 40x times the antioxidants in blueberries and is one of the highest plant-based sources of iron. It is also loaded with magnesium and calcium too. Cacao powder is also rich in flavonoids and is a natural mood booster. There are still more benefits of cacao but for now I think you get the point of how great cacao is already! Cacao may be intimidating at first but for all the dark chocolate lovers out there you will definitely appreciate the flavor! Since there is little to no processing and it is in the purest form of chocolate, cacao has a bitter taste. Some people like to snack on cacao nibs straight, but there are many other ways to bring cacao into your diet! Switch up your smoothie game with a Cacao Banana Smoothie, or add it to any smoothie for a chocolate taste! The sweetness of different fruits will lighten up the bitterness of the cacao and it'll be a refreshing change! You could also add a TBSP of cacao into any of your favorite muffin or cake recipes!
I could talk about cacao forever, but I think you get the point. It's full of antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, flavonoids and adds variety into your diet!
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