7 Comments

Sending this to my chocolate-loving friend. :) I just had some cacao powder in warm raw milk with a dash of maple syrup this morning. Yum. Great article, Gavin!

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:) Sounds delicious. Thank you for the kind comment Barbara.

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Another amazing post. We're lucky to have two direct-source cacao providers in Santa Cruz:

https://www.mutarichocolate.com/ and https://www.coracaoconfections.com/pages/cacoco-home. I had to make a cup of the latter to read this article, because it was making me salivate. I had the spicy dark with chiles and reishi, but my favorite is the golden dark with tumeric, maca and cardamom. Drink of the goddesses!

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Thanks :) Oh very cool! I have tried the "CACOCO" products before, very tasty and good quality ingredients. I spoke to their farm management team and was pretty impressed with how they are working to take care of the rainforest and communities where they get their cacao from.

I got this one https://www.sdvforest.com/shop/p/spiced-cacao-tonic-10-oz from the farmers in Ecuador I talked about in in the article and I am really loving it. I especially love how they grow everything that went into it on their own farm and processed it themselves. :)

I wonder what medicinal mushrooms they could forage for or cultivate in the jungle and add to their mixes, hmmm I think I shall write them and inquire about this.

Thanks for the lovely comment, and Happy New Year!

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love love love. I've always been convinced of it's healing properties but am very sensitive, and seem to be getting more so, to cocoa and cacao and it can keep me awake for a whole night. my sleep is more healing I think x

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Really? Do you mind if I ask in what form and at what time of day have you tried eating it before? I know for me I used to consume cocao along side sugar (as it was an ingredient in a processed chocolate or pre-made beverage) and the sugar can of course effect sleeping patterns.

I have found the same on the occasion where I ate some whole beans in the afternoon/evening but I find if I eat cacao in the morning I it does not effect my sleeping patterns.

One typical serving size of cacao contains about half the caffeine of a brewed cup of coffee. Though for me it is not so much the caffine the makes the difference (though I do like that is has less than coffee) but rather the fact that cacao also contains about ten times more Theobromine than it does caffeine (which offers a more balanced form of energy and nootropic effects without the downsides of caffeine).

Apparently, it is possible to decaffeinate cacao (while still retaining the antioxidants that are responsible for so many of the health benefits cacao offers) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5302282/ So perhaps there would be some natural (non-lab conditions) method involving a hot water decaffeination process that would let you take advantage of the amazing health benefits of cacao without having to ingest the caffeine?

Thanks for the comment

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Yes even the lower sugar chocolates at lunch time will keep me awake, and I can't drink coffee at any time of the day without it affecting my sleep.

I would love to be able to eat cocoa, I think it's delicious x

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