Sugar & Other Sweeteners
The next important topic to discuss in terms of healthy chocolate is sugar and other sweeteners. I mentioned on another page that cacao is extremely healthy, and since chocolate is made from it, this is why chocolate has so many health benefits as well. However, the more processed the cacao is, the more we're getting away from its initial, nutritional value.
So makers of dark chocolate are touting all the health benefits because of the cacao, but then they go and add something that's diametrically opposed to good health: sugar. (Or corn syrup, or other artificial sweeteners. Actually, when artificial sweeteners are added, the FDA no longer considers the product true chocolate.)
Now granted, I prefer sugar to anything artificial. I won't write an article on artificial sweeteners here, but I basically think they're evil. The list of negative side effects numbers just about as long as parts of the body.
But sugar's list of side effects is nearly as long. When you include sugar in chocolate, the health benefits may outweigh the problems of sugar, but the problems are still there.
If you look at most of the chocolates on the market today, compare the sugar content with the weight of the entire piece of chocolate. What I've seen is that sugar ends up being 25-50% of the product! When did we start calling that healthy? (Ounce for ounce, soda contains less!)
Now, it's important to understand that SOME OF THIS PERCENTAGE comes from sugar naturally found in the cacao bean. Raw cacao nibs are roughly 7% sugar. (2 grams per ounce.) But that still leaves a lot of added sugar in almost every chocolate.
To really get the health benefits of cacao and NOT dampen them with sugar or artificial sweeterns, I believe it's important to use sweeteners like xylitol, stevia, or agave nectar, which are widely used by those in the health community.
XYLITOL
Xylitol not only sweetens food, but it actually provides many health BENEFITS. As health writer Natalie Aranda puts it:
Research conducted in more than 40 countries around the world has shown that Xylitol contributes to weight loss, increased bone density, hormonal imbalance restoring, and blood sugar stabilization for diabetic patients, lowering their insulin levels.
It is also widely noted for its oral health benefits, as xylitol has an anti-bacterial quality that can kill the bacteria on teeth (and presumably elsewhere in the body), and it lowers the body's acid levels, while sugar raises acid in the body. (Acidity causes a wide range of problems.)
Having said that, many companies still avoid xylitol because it has a unique flavor that most people need to get used to. It certainly puts a different spin on chocolate.
My favorite chocolate -- Gnosis Chocolate -- is sweetened with agave nectar, which is low on the glycemic index and in my opinion is a healthier choice than sugar.
TYPES OF SUGAR
Having said all this, there are different TYPES Of sugar, and some spike blood sugar more than others (which means that they have a higher glycemic index rating). Xocai uses fructose rather than sucrose as its sugar, and this DOES have a lower glycemic index rating than sucrose.
In fact, sucrose has a rating almost 3 times higher than fructose. So I applaud Xocai for at least using a BETTER sugar. But fructose has a rating more than 3 times higher than xylitol. So it WILL spike the blood sugar more than 3 times as much.
By now, if you've read through all "The Facts" pages in order, you've covered most of what you need to know when picking out a healthy chocolate. But there are still a couple useful things you can look into, and one of them is how chocolate is made -- knowing this will help you to understand the quality of chocolate you're getting. So let's take a look at the parts of chocolate.
