My family and I don’t tend to eat much chocolate for the simple reason that caffeine is so incredibly addictive and who needs more strain on already stressed out adrenals in this crazy day and age?
When we go out to a movie as a family, however, I usually make an exception and pick up a bit of quality chocolate for us to nibble and enjoy during the show.
Have any of you noticed that good quality chocolate is getting increasingly hard to find these days?
My husband and I first started to notice that American chocolate was going to the dogs about 20 years ago. Upscale American chocolates like Russell Stover, Godiva and others started to add artificial ingredients and cheapened the quality of the chocolate with milk powder, vegetable oil instead of cocoa butter and even artificial flavors!
To avoid these cheap imitation chocolates, we started to buy chocolate only at a small British shop where we could procure European chocolates like Cadbury’s (only made in the UK – the USA Cadbury’s was bad quality), Lindt and others.
Now it seems the European chocolates have followed suit and gone downhill in quality as well. At our recent family movie outing just last week, my husband could not find a single brand of European chocolate at our local Fresh Market that was free of additives, artificial flavors or rancid vegetable oils.
It seems our only choice for decent chocolate now is at the health food store. Organic brands have so far held the line on cheapening their product. Starbucks used to have quality chocolate as well but I haven’t checked the ingredients list there in a while as I don’t drink coffee and so don’t shop there very often if ever.
I’ve found that even if a brand is ok one day, it might not be the next so frequent checking and rechecking of ingredient labels is necessary to ensure that quality is still intact.
What chocolate brands are you using these days? If you have discovered a brand that is free of garbage ingredients and doesn’t include soya lecithin, please post about it in the comments section.
Since I only eat chocolate now and then, I insist that my chocolate experience be a quality one!
This isn’t high end chocolate or even dark for that matter {semi-sweet}, but we buy Enjoy Life’s chocolate chips {dairy and soy free}…two ingredients listed: cocoa and cane sugar. It’s made on dedicated gluten-free lines as well. They are a company in the burbs of Chicago {near my home}… I just love that the “soya lecithin” isn’t in there….it really tastes better!
🙂 Great for cookies and dipping strawberries. And frozen bananas…
oh you need to get in touch with Michelle McNeill in Canada and try her life-promoting chocolate.
http://www.tazachocolate.com/
Organic Stone Ground… yum!
I read your blog quite often and rarely comment, but I didn’t see Taza Chocolate mentioned yet, so I thought I’d share. It is minimally processed and yummy!! The discs for hot chocolate are the best. I haven’t tried the new 87% dark, but the others are wonderful. I’m fortunate to get a lot of my WAP info and products at Three Stone Hearth http://www.threestonehearth.com and this is where I found out about Taza.
http://www.tazachocolate.com
Lisa
Thanks for sharing, I never knew this. This is awesome, makes so much sense.
http://www.tazachocolate.com/OurProcess/Fermentation_&_Drying
Lindt 99%
(It looks like the Askinosie website is down at the moment. It should be up soon.)
Askinosie Chocolate is single-source chocolate. The beans are grown only by farmers with whom the owner has personally met. Plus Mr. Askinosie insists on certain conditions of the workers and he builds schools/wells/etc. in the villages where the workers live. Not bad for a little building in Springfield Missouri! http://www.askinosie.com
Rapunzel is 70% cacao and sweetened with Rapadura. You can find it online or at Chamberlin’s Market….the Lakeland store is the closest one to you in Tampa.
I usually buy Equal Exchange Chocolates at Whole Foods. It’s 80% cacao and only 4 ingredients, and none of them are soy!
I’m not sure if it is available in the states, but an Australian brand called Loving Earth makes the most divine raw chocolate imaginable. Organic raw cacao, organic coconut sugar and organic vanilla beans. Amazing! This is their website: http://www.lovingearth.net
You can also make your own raw chocolate quite easily mixing raw cacao powder, melted raw cacoa butter, coconut oil, grassfed butter and maple syrup or honey along with any spices you want to add (I use cinnamon, orange rind and ginger). It’s really easy and so delicious 🙂
Hope this helps! x
Green & Black’s 85% is still my fav, but Lindt 85% has no additives and is a good second best. It seems that the darker the chocolate is, the less junk is in it, which suits me!