Product of the Week: Raw Organic Cacao

Thanks for tuning in to another edition of "Product of the Week" where we feature an exciting product that you might just love! Due to the holiday last week, there was no post on Monday: as such I'm giving you an extended version of this post!

Today I'm featuring chocolatey items from Sunfood -- a company that offers organic, raw products.

Cacao Nibs, 8 oz, Organic, Raw - Sunfood


"Sunfood's Organic Raw Cacao Nibs lead the superfood industry in quality, flavor, eco-packaging, and antioxidant value. This is one of our premier superfoods and is one of the most unique and beautiful chocolate (cocoa) products on Earth. Our Certified Organic Cacao Nibs are created from beautiful, clean, microbe-free 100% Arriba Nacional Fino de Aroma Pure Raw Cacao Beans."








Rawtella - Chocolate Hazelnut Spread, 6oz




"Rawtella in an incredibly delicious, hand-crafted, chocolate hazelnut spread made in small batches from high quality organic ingredients. Rawtella is mouth-watering simplicity. You can hardly believe that it is made from just three ingredients: raw hazelnuts, raw cacao nibs and coconut sugar. These fine ingredients are stone ground into a delectable, spreadable delight."




Caramel Cacao Truffle Bar, 2.3oz/66g, Righteously Raw (certified organic)



"Sunfood is pleased to introduce a raw cacao truffle so delicious, so pure, that the flavor and texture can only be called Righteous. The Caramel Cacao Truffle Bar is a stupendous leap forward in taste and nutrition for any chocolate bar, and it's completely raw, organic, and gluten-free!"



Mmmmmm.....

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Finding Organic Foods (and Chocolate...)

Depending where you live it can be a little difficult to scrounge up the organic foods you need to eat the way you prefer. Here in Medicine Hat it involves a lot of stopping by a variety of stores to see what is available. For us, there is no such thing as one store that sells all the organic food you need for great prices.

So we shop around.

London Drugs has organic food mixed in at random with their other products. Cereals, chocolates, Wolfgang Puck Canned Soups (which by the way, are the best canned soups you will ever find.)

Superstore has a wider selection, in fact they even have a whole isle dedicated to organic and natural foods. They also have their own brand of organic products, just look for the green and white labels! They also carry produce, however it has been irradiated. (We'll talk about that more in another post.)

Nutters, our local heath food store, has recently started carrying produce and offers a decent selection of cereals, baking ingredients and dairy.

3rd St Market, a small shop in downtown Medicine Hat, also carries organic produce, dairy and other foods.

Bulk Barn has a small but not insignificant selection and their prices are more reasonable than other stores.

Safeway also has their own brand of organic foods.

Shoppers Drug Mart has their own organic brand as well, it stands out from the rest with it's bright orange packaging - their chocolate isn't particularly great, however they have blue corn chips that are absolutely fabulous!

Speaking of chocolate -- just like when you shop around at regular stores, often online stores have snuck in a small section of organic foods. You might not even notice unless you look for it! I was recently checking out Chocolate.com and I was pleasantly surprised to learn that they have a whole selection of organic chocolates.



As an added bonus you can get 5% off any of their products by using the code BONBONS when you check out. That right there is proof that shopping around is a great idea!

I would love to know if you have found organic food/products in places you never expected. Especially if they are in online stores that anyone can have access to!
 

Banana photo via anolobb

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Chocolate Part 3: Guilt-free Pleasure

As the culmination of the chocolate related posts this week, I wanted to bring to you a chocolate company that 'does it right'.

Green and Black's Chocolate



Some of my favorite chocolate bars are Green and Black's and awesomely enough you can find them in many drug stores and supermarkets as well as your natural food stores in North America. The taste of the chocolate is second to none and they have the best white chocolate that I have ever had the pleasure of eating.

This video takes you behind the scenes to a cacao farm in Brazil, where they source some of their beans from.



More on their ingredients:

Photo via TheDeliciousLife

I have yet to find somewhere online where you can buy these chocolate bars, however rest assured that as soon as I do; you'll be the first to know!

Chocolate Part 1: The Cacao Tree and Chocolate Basics
Chocolate Part 2: The Dark Truth

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Chocolate Part 2: The Dark Truth

In the last post we covered a few basics; but today we are going to delve into the nitty-gritty of the chocolate world. The things you never knew, and maybe never wanted to.

The chocolate begins with cacao farms; the places where the trees are grown and harvested. Unfortunately many farms are not like the happy relaxed places that you see in most promotional videos. Often times the farmers don't make enough money to cover the cost of necessities, let alone lead a comfortable life. Many cacao farms used forced labor; including child labor.



""We could identify some children who, we believe, had been traded in some way and did not have the freedom to leave the farms on which they were working," an IITA report says. The organization found that children harvest the cocoa beans from farms in the jungle using machetes. They spray crops with pesticides and insecticides, without masks, rubber boots or proper equipment."

Such conditions are absolutely deplorable, and by purchasing chocolate that originates in these places you are only helping to perpetuate the problem.

All this for the sake of a sweet snack.

Don't worry, this series isn't quite finished yet -- you can still have your chocolate and feel good about buying it. Don't miss tomorrow's post to find out more!

View Chocolate Part 1: The Cacao Tree and Chocolate Basics

Pictures via cliff1066™ and EverJean

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Chocolate Part 1: The Cacao Tree and Chocolate Basics

Chocolate. A magical elixir.

Decadence, pleasure, sensuality; all are associated with the wonderful treat that North Americans love and enjoy. We all have our favourite brands, our favorite flavours - and yet many people don't even know what it really is made from.



This brief video gives you a glimpse of the life of cacao tree - without it, we would never have experienced the wonder of chocolate.



Now, that looks all fine and dandy doesn't it? The tree itself is fascinating, and cacao is not bad for humans. If the majority of the chocolate we eat was made solely from the cacao, we wouldn't have any problems... too bad it's not.

If you look it up, most times you'll find this list of ingredients:

Cacao Liquor (very different from the alcoholic variety.)
Cacao Butter
Sugar
Milk
Vanilla



Sounds positively perfect doesn't it? The only problem is, this list doesn't include a single one of the additives that are present in most chocolate brands. And a lot of the time, when we think we are eating chocolate, we're not. To be allowed to call itself 'Chocolate' a product has to contain at least 10% cacao; what they don't tell you is that a tiny change in name means that companies can put whatever they want into the chocolate bar.

Hershey's Chocolate for example, has switched many of their formulas to include much, much less actual cacao. The cacao butter has been replaced with vegetable oils and other ingredients that are cheaper - they get away with it by making tiny changes on the labels of their chocolates; changes such as calling it a 'chocolate candy' or referring to it as 'chocolatey' or 'made with chocolate'. The packaging is exactly the same other than the wording, and most people will never notice.

Irritating isn't it? That as the consumer you can be lied you and deceived and yet it's perfectly allowable. This is just one of the many reasons why it is good to look deeper into where your foods come from. The promotional material and videos of most companies might look great, but they still are only showing you what you want to see.

Over the next few posts I'll talk more about chocolate ingredients, cacao farming and of course; chocolate that you can feel good about eating.

Photo via Amy Loves Yah

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