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“I could give up chocolate, but I’m not a quitter.”

—ANONYMOUS

“Anything is good, if it’s covered in chocolate.”

—JO BRAND, COMEDIENNE

The cacao bean comes from the cacao fruit, which is a pod growing mainly in Africa and South America, similar to a papaya. The fruit is delicious, and consumed by the native people, white and creamy and not overly sweet; similar to custard apple. Each fruit contains between 20 – 50 beans, and the cacao bean is what all chocolate is made from. So why have we only recently discovered the health benefits of chocolate? The average bar of chocolate you find on the supermarket shelves is made from cocoa solids. Fermenting the beans, then drying them out, makes cocoa solids. The beans are then cleaned and roasted, and this heating process destroys many of their nutritional properties. The roasted beans then have their shells removed and the result are the nibs, broken-up bits of bean. The nibs are then intensely heated again, so the oils melt to form what is known as chocolate liquor. The chocolatiers take the cocoa solids and at very high temperatures, mix them with ingredients—usually milk, sugar and emulsifiers—to make a chocolate bar. So the cacao bean goes through three heating processes, has many of its beneficial oils removed, is combined with foods that are not optimally healthy, and the chocolate that we experience is but a poor shadow of the real thing. In Europe, regulations state that to be called milk chocolate, a bar must contain at least 10% cocoa solids—so in a high street chocolate bar, only one-tenth of the actual ingredients have to be this denatured form of chocolate, and the rest is fattening, bad for your teeth, acidic, and unbalancing for the blood sugar! The discovery of the raw cacao bean is analogous to having only been fed white sliced bread our whole lives and suddenly discovering the power of the whole wheat grain; or only drinking orange juice made from concentrate out of a carton and having freshly squeezed for the first time. Despite this, it is still one of the most popular foods on the planet. There is no other food which people become so openly and willingly addicted to! This gives us some idea of the power of cacao.

Pottery evidence of the use of cacao dates back to Honduras in 2000 B.C., although the human use of cacao fruit may go back as far as 15,000 years. It originates from South America, and the first civilization that is considered to have cultivated cacao was the Olmecs of Mexico. The Mayans learned about cacao from the Olmecs and made it a central part of their civilization. There is much archaeological evidence of pottery and wall carvings, some of their rulers were named after cacao, and they even had cacao gods. As well as imbibing cacao, they used it in coming-of-age rituals and as a sacred offering in religious ceremonies. The Aztec civilization followed that of the Mayans, and they too conferred great prestige on the cacao pod. The beans were so revered by the Mayans and Aztecs that they used them as currency. In the Aztec city of Texcoco, the city budget was as much as 32,000 beans a day! One fish was worth three cacao beans, one avocado was worth one cacao bean, a canoe was one hundred beans. Incredibly, they continued to be used as currency in Mexico until 1887. It was the Spanish explorer Hernan Cortes, who conquered Mexico in the sixteenth century, who brought cacao to Europe. Cortes described cacao as “the divine drink which builds up resistance and fights fatigue. A cup of this precious drink permits a man to walk for a whole day without food.” Christopher Columbus also recorded coming across it on his travels. Carl von Linnaeus, the eighteenth-century Swedish scientist, gave the tree its Latin name, theobroma cacao, “cacao, the food of the gods.” Now, over two-thirds of the world’s cacao is grown in Africa, mainly on the Cote d’Ivoire.

In its raw, untampered-with state, the cacao bean is one of the most nutrient-dense foods known to man. It contains over 300 chemical compounds, making it one of the most complex and nutritionally significant foods available to us. It is a premium source of minerals, vitamins, antioxidants, protein and healthy fats.

Minerals

Cacao is one of the very best known dietary sources of magnesium and sulphur. Magnesium is an essential mineral in which most of us are deficient. Like calcium, it is important for building strong bones, and assists in converting EFAs in the body. It provides essential support for the heart, helps relieve premenstrual tension, and is a natural laxative. It is an excellent source of sulphur, known as the beauty mineral because it is so beneficial for the hair, eyes, skin and teeth. Cacao also contains significant amounts of iron, phosphorous, and the B vitamin group.

Antioxidants

Cacao contains 10% antioxidant flavonols, nearly twice the amount found in red wine and three times that found in green tea. The antioxidants in cacao are easily absorbable by the body, and have been shown to assist in cardiovascular health, and help prevent against cancer. The ORAC score is the official U.S. measurement for antioxidant levels in food. The ORAC score for raw cacao powder is virtually off the scale—995 units per gram, at least seven times more than that of normal dark chocolate.

Neurotransmitters

Neurotransmitters are chemicals which transmit nerve impulses across a synapse, i.e. they effect chemical reactions in the brain. Cacao is home to the neurotransmitter anandamide, known as “the bliss chemical,” an endogenous cannabinoid naturally found in the human brain. Cacao is the only food other than cannabis to contain cannabinoids. Cacao also contains anandamide inhibitors, which means that our bodies’ abilities to break down anandamide is decreased, and so the blissed-out feeling lasts longer. Cacao also contains significant amounts of tryptophan, an essential amino acid which the brain uses to make the neurotransmitter serotonin. Serotonin is known for the feelings of euphoria it creates; the dance-drug Ecstacy causes large amounts of serotonin to be released in the brain.

Phenylethylamine

PEA is known as “the molecule of joy,” and only present in two foods, chocolate and blue-green algae. It is the chemical produced in the brain when we are fully happy and immersed in the moment, especially when involved in a creative act like writing or painting, dancing or making music. PEA is also very good for the brain, and improves brain function. When I take the PEA extract Blue Manna, I feel more focused, alert and intelligent. Physically, it promotes healthy joints and tissues. And if all that wasn’t enough, PEA also affects the neurotransmitters dopamine and norepinephrine, which increase mental positivity. It is the presence of PEA which largely seems to account for the common folklore wisdom that chocolate makes a good substitution for sex, as we get the same increased levels of PEA when we are in love. “Some 50% of women reportedly claim to prefer chocolate to sex, though this response may depend on the attributes of the interviewer.” (chocolate.org)

Aphrodisiacs

A box of chocolates is the most popular gift to give on Valentine’s day. As well as the loved-up feelings we get from the PEA in chocolate, the neurotransmitters affected by chocolate make us feel happy and alert, and the minerals magnesium and sulphur both loosen the muscles and make us more relaxed. On top of that, cacao is one of the best dietary sources of arginine, an amino acid also known as nature’s Viagra. Arginine increases blood flow to the heart and the genitals, increasing arousal and improving sexual appetite.

MAO Inhibitors

Cacao contains monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) which inhibit monoamine oxidase enzymes (MAOs). This has the effect of increasing the levels of neurotransmitters in the body, and having an antidepressant effect. When we are young, we naturally produce high levels of neurotransmitters, thus MAOIs facilitate a youthful attitude to life and have anti-aging properties. They also act as an appetite suppressant. Cacao seems to have the effect of regulating the body’s natural appetite: it helps us tune into what our bodies actually need, rather than eating out of habit or for emotional comfort. Most regular consumers of raw cacao report weight loss and an improved ability to stabilize their weight at the level they feel most comfortable with. Additionally, MAOIs are present in significant amounts in shamanistic plants such as ayahuasca. This would account for the enhanced psychic sensibility that many cacao-lovers experience.

Stimulants

Cacao contains subtle amounts of the methylxanthines caffeine and theobromine. These are both stimulants, however both are proving to have far different effects when consumed raw rather than cooked. The presence of caffeine is one of the primary reasons people cite for avoiding chocolate, but in our experience, the caffeine in raw chocolate has little to no effect. Personally, I have a highly developed and sensitive system which cannot tolerate even small doses of substances such as alcohol and caffeine. Before we discovered raw chocolate, if I was to eat even the tiniest amount of cooked vegan dark chocolate, I would feel the negative effects of the caffeine. I get a tense, wired, edgy feeling from caffeine that I never get from raw cacao. When we first started making chocolate bars, one batch of cacao nibs we were sent had been toasted by accident. It only took a few days of consuming these toasted nibs for us all to notice an increase in aggressive feelings and mood swings. This to me was enough proof that the caffeine in cacao only has negative effects once it has been heated. Homeopathic research has come to a similar conclusion that the physiological changes are caused by substances released during heating.

So why is cacao such a magical food? Why do people go completely crazy for it, while others are vehemently against it? I believe cacao is a wake-up food. It wakes you up to your full power, to who you truly are, to the potentiality of the moment, to the infinite and abundant nature of the universe. For a lot of people, this is too much to handle. We are brought up to believe in limitation and suffering. For people whose whole lives are based around this paradigm, cacao brings up too much fear. How could I step outside of the box I’ve created for myself? How could I let go of my ego’s definition of who I am, and be fully, spiritually in the moment? For many people this is too big a leap to make, and they cannot find a place for the cacao gods in their hearts. But for the majority of people, the opposite is true. Most people feel limited and restricted in their lives. They are dying to break out of the box, to live a bit more freely, to embrace who they fully are and be given a chance to soar. Cacao gives them a taste of what this could be like, and that is a wonderful feeling. And remember, with our thoughts we create the world. So when we experience that cacao high, every time we break out of a restricting thought pattern, we are telling the universe we are willing to accept a greater truth, a higher reality.

For example, you are having a tough morning with the kids. Two of them are fighting, and the baby has had you awake all night. There is a big pile of washing to do, and a heap of emails you are dying to get a peek at. It’s 11 a.m. and you are starting to flag. Eat a piece of toast, or a few rice cakes, and you are more likely to stay locked in that negative pattern. How hard this all is; why do mums get so dumped on; why don’t I have more help? But eat some raw cacao with its super-dynamic loved-up switched-on energy, and your whole mindset changes. You find yourself laughing at their bickering instead of taking it seriously, and rather than shouting at them and losing your temper, you join in the rough and tumble and make a game of it. Or you notice what a glorious sunny day it is outside and bundle them all up to the swings where you bump into one of your favorite friends and sit there putting the world to rights while the children get to burn off their energy. The vibration you are sending out to the universe then is that parenting is fun and easy, and miraculously the universe sends you situations that match that vibration; your husband comes home and spontaneously attacks the wash basket for you instead of watching TV, and a friend offers to have the kids over the next day which gives you a chance to disappear into your emails. Whereas if you had been in a grump all day about the hopelessness of your situation and the misery of parenthood, that is just the situation the universe delivers for you, the next day, and the next day, and the next day, until you can change that record in your head.

Cacao is the food of the goddess. Goddess energy is about being in the moment; it is about surrender, acceptance, and loving everything. It is about flowing, and being present and giving, giving, and more giving. When we eat cacao, it puts us right back in touch with our goddess energy. It puts us fully in the moment, and loving it, ready to give some more. For instance, you have had a long busy day at work. You’ve come straight home for dinner and had a delicious raw soup. You know you should call your mum because she called over the weekend and you haven’t had a chance to return her call; she will be waiting, getting anxious that you are neglecting her. Have some ice cream for dessert and you’ll more likely end up in front of the TV, feeling guilty that you haven’t called again. But eat a piece of chocolate as an after-dinner treat, and bam! There is that extra energy you needed to pick up the phone and show your mum you really do care. You speak for half an hour, and she feels so much better because she got to speak with you, and you feel so much better because you made your mum happy.

Cacao is also a major sunfood. Sunfoods are the foods that carry strong yang energy: they are expansive, they help us reach up and out and are strengthening and energizing. They keep our energy rising and ascending. Thus they help us deal with our blockages, because they give us the insight to rise above them, to meet them head on and to move beyond them. Perhaps there is a boy that you like. He said he would call that evening, but he has a habit of letting you down. When he does call, he is always charming and funny and gorgeous; unfortunately, he more often doesn’t call than he does. Instead of sitting at home, wasting time on Facebook, waiting for the phone to ring, you eat some raw chocolate, call up a girlfriend, and go out for a dance. And who knows, maybe you meet a charming, funny, gorgeous boy who does call!

Are you getting the picture now? At first sight, it may seem simplistic to say that a food can change your life. But what we are really saying is your consciousness creates your reality, with your thoughts you make the world. Basically put, we are all a chain of chemical reactions, endless cause and effect. The food you put in your mouth is made of many chemicals; these have an effect on your body and consciousness; which then has an effect on how you react to any given situation; which then has a knock-on effect on the rest of your day, your week, your life, and also the lives of everyone you come into contact with. Cacao is made of over 300 chemical constituents; it is one of the most complex foods known to man. It melts at body temperature, so when you put it in your mouth, all those chemicals explode as they hit the tongue. So it is such an all-encompassing, expansive, abundant food, that that is how you feel when you eat it; at its best, it gives you the ability to feel that you could deal with any situation that arises in the next moment; it makes you feel god-like, a superbeing. This is what we mean when we talk about superbeings: people who are so in their flow, so in tune with their higher purpose, so aligned with their inner truth, that they are not afraid of living in their full power, they know they can deal with whatever life throws at them. And precisely because they are so positive, so visionary, so fearless, they attract in less and less situations of stress, doubt, negativity and poverty, and instead create a reality about them that is blissful, assured and abundant.

Another magical property of cacao is the way it acts as a platform for other foods. It has a synergistic effect on the ingredients that you mix it with that increases their effect exponentially. For that reason, I often put a little cacao in with my other superfoods. You don’t need a lot, just half a teaspoon of powder or a teaspoon of nibs, but it gives them a lift, an extra edge. Instead of just taking maca straight, mix a little chocolate in and the effects will be maca to the power of maca, maca squared. It’s like cacao raises the vibration of whatever it comes into contact with, it shines a spotlight on it and allows it be fully who it is, it brings out the very best qualities of a food. Naturally, this works in reverse as well; a tablespoon of maca or a teaspoon of suma in your chocolate rounds out the cacao experience, brings an extra depth to the cacao magic, enhances the alchemy.

Many religions teach that the road to enlightenment is through a balance of the opposing forces within us. Life as we know it is about duality, and what propels us on is the searching for a resolution within that dynamic, a striving to find the unity, bliss and oneness behind it all. It is a perpetual dance between yin and yang, the dark and the light, heaven and earth. The more we learn to combine those energies, to allow them to co-exist within us, the closer we get to reaching nirvana. Cacao is the food of enlightenment because it is a sunfood (yang) and it is also the food of the goddess (yin). It brings together the two polarities within us. How does it do this? Culturally, we are taught to think of foods as either good for us and boring, or bad for us and fun; “you can’t have your cake and eat it.” When I was a child, eaters were divided into two clear-cut categories: the sanctimonious, weird and dull people who ate brown rice and lentils, or the life-affirming brigade who embraced everything and drank, smoked and ate dead animals. Gradually, over the decades, those stereotypes started to dissolve as the do-gooders realized they had to acknowledge their dark side, they couldn’t abstain forever unless they really did want to be miserable; and the omnivores started to get sick in ever-increasing numbers. Cacao dissolves all those stereotypes completely. Here is the richest, darkest, most delicious, decadent, luxurious, divine-tasting food ever, and it also happens to be one of the number one dietary sources of minerals and anti-oxidants on the planet. One slice of one of my chocolate cakes has more nutrition in it than what most people would consider a healthy meal, something like stirfry and noodles. When eaten on a regular basis, cacao really does blow your mind, because it blasts all your preconceptions of what is good and bad out of the window. It allows you to live beyond duality, to dance in the one. You can discover your darkness and live in your light all at the same time. It is the mother and the father energy all rolled into one; it nurtures you and comforts you, then it kicks you out the door and tells you to get the hell on with it.

What else? Yes, there’s more, there’s always more. Because cacao is the food of abundance. It helps us to experience the universe as infinite and eternal; it opens us up to the sense that we can keep flowing, keep living, keep loving. Life stops being a series of deaths and rebirths, and turns into a continual ecstatic “Yes!”