Carob vs. Cocoa/Chocolate/Cacao... - Page 2

[newcastlemama]

I grind the raw coaco nibs and make a raw chocolate milkshake (with maple/honey/agave for sweetness) for dh. He loves it.

[Annabel]

I hated carob until I stopped thinking of it as a sustitute for chocolate. It does taste pretty good in its own right, but chocolate it is not.
Now excuse me while I go and get my block of 85% off the shelf and try and eat it without my almost 2 year old noticing (who would have thought a baby would like chocolate that bitter?)

[Nikki98]

I love chocolate, and anything related to it!!!!

[TigerTail]

I LOVE CAROB! Every since a field trip to El Molino Mills as a child. And that funky smell of old streets in Pasadena, ahhh, the carob trees...

BUT IT IS NOT CHOCOLATE. I wish the blasphemers who mention them in the same sentence would just hush.

Target has fair trade organic 60% cacao with hazelnut & currants normally priced at 3.50 a bar for .88. (Um, don't bother with the Nashville store, they're out .)

It's like saying mashed potatoes suck because they aren't vanilla ice cream. Well, no, but they still taste good, dammit!

[Metasequoia]

Originally Posted by bonberi

...Thank Darwin....

: *That's* what I've been looking for!!!!!!

Oh, and carob, blech. I have yet to taste it in something & not feel like gagging. Chocolate OTOH....

[AugustLia23]

This bakery near my house used to have the yummiest carop chip cookies when I was a kid. Mmm, I've been craving them for years....

Another amen though, we love chocolate here, and now there are some wonderful options for fair trade. We love green & black everything! And equal exchange, our local corner store carries both!

[Panserbjorne]

Okay people, but has anyone tried RAW carob? Totally different than the nastiness that is peddled in health food circles. Not chocolate, but way different than toasted carob -shudder-

[hethir]

You can get pure chocolate before it is processed, it is called nibs or raw cocoa pwd. It is the raw product before they add sugar and other ingredients. Hersheys does not count, that is not cholcolate. that is candy. You can look at here and see what I am talking about. You can also get it cheaper than that site so don't let that stear you wrong. there have been some studys to come out recently that show that cholcolate (the real stuff, dark) is one of the highest antioxidant foods available.
Here is the full article about it.
or you can read the good stuff:

Cacao As A Superfood
Cacao beans contain over 300 chemically identifiable compounds making it one of the most complex food substances on Earth!

Substances in chocolate that have been discussed in the scientific literature as pharmacologically significant, include: anandamide (bliss chemical), arginine (nature's Viagra), dopamine (neurotransmitter), epicatechins (antioxidants), histamine, magnesium, serotonin (anti-stress neurotransmitter), tryptophan (anti-depressant amino acid), phenylethylamine (PEA), polyphenols (antioxidants), tyramine, and salsolinol.

Magnesium
Dr. Bernard Jensen's research on the heart indicates that this organ requires two minerals more than any other, magnesium and potassium. Magnesium is concentrated eighteen times greater in the heart muscle than in the bloodstream. Magnesium is the primarily mineral missing when heart problems occur. Magnesium increases the overall vigor of the heart muscle. This mineral also decreases blood coagulation thus lowering blood pressure and helping the heart pump more effectively. Cacao, of course, is a fantastic food source of heart-supporting magnesium.

Antioxidants
According to research cited in The New York Times, fresh cacao beans are super-rich in antioxidant flavonols. Cacao beans contain 10,000 milligrams (10 grams) per 100 grams of flavonol antioxidants. This is a whopping 10% antioxidant concentration level! This makes cacao one of the richest sources of antioxidants of any food. Compare the cacao bean to processed cocoa powder (defatted, roasted cacao treated with potassium carbonate) and chocolates which range in flavonol content from the more common concentration of 500 milligrams per 100 grams in normal chocolate bars to 5,000 milligrams in Mars Corporation's special Cocoapro cocoa powder.

Research has demonstrated that the antioxidants in cacao are highly stable and easily available to human metabolism.

Cornell University food scientists found that cocoa powder has nearly twice the antioxidants of red wine and up to three times what is found in green tea. Their findings were published in an article entitled "Cocoa Has More Phenolic Phytochemicals and a Higher Antioxidant Capacity than Teas and Red Wine," found in the American Chemical Society's Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, a peer-reviewed publication.

Scientists have known that cocoa contains significant antioxidants, but no one knew just how rich they were compared with those in red wine and green tea.

The Cornell researchers, led by Chang Y. Lee, chairman of the Department of Food Science and Technology at Cornell University's New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, N.Y., say the reason that cocoa leads the other drinks is its high content of antioxidant compounds called phenolic phytochemicals, or flavonoids. They discovered 611 milligrams of the phenolic compound gallic acid equivalents (GAE) and 564 milligrams of the flavonoid epicatechin equivalents (ECE) in a single serving of cocoa. Examining a glass of red wine, the researchers found 340 milligrams of GAE and 163 milligrams of ECE. In a cup of green tea, they found 165 milligrams of GAE and 47 milligrams of ECE.

Antioxidant ORAC levels per 100 grams:
dark chocolate - 13,120
milk chocolate - 6,740
prunes - 5,770
raisins - 2,830
blueberries - 2,400
blackberries - 2036
kale - 1,770
strawberries - 1540
spinach - 1260
raspberries - 1220
brussel sprouts - 980
plums - 949
alfalfa sprouts - 930
broccoli - 890

The ORAC test examines the antioxidant levels of various foods. The higher the ORAC score, the higher the level of antioxidants present in the food. Source: US Department of Agriculture / Journal of the American Chemical Society

[Panserbjorne]

For a REAL treat you can watch David Wolfe talk about cacao...mmmm...David Wolfe...

[rayo de sol]

Don't get me wrong, I LOOOVE chocolate. I've become very enamored of the Green & Black organic orange-flavored dark chocolate bar. And I love to make homemade smoothies with organic cocoa powder. (Carob is OK--that's all we got growing up--but I like chocolate better.)

But I just found out about the lead contamination of chocolate. Is lead stored in the body, and would it affect a baby in the womb? That's what worries me.

Read here about the lead:

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20051105/food.asp

[jrose_lee]

thank you hethir! That's the info I needed. I didn't even know you could get it raw & unprocessed. That is expensive though isn't it? Do most of you get this (cacoa nips etc) through food co-ops or online?

As far as lead goes it said this about it on the site hethir listed:

California's Proposition 65 is one of the strictest food quality laws in the United States. Prop 65 imposes an allowable limit of 0.5 ppm (parts per million) of lead found in chocolate products. All of Nature's First Law's cacao/chocolate products safely test under 0.2 ppm. Lead does naturally occur in cacao, though in extremely trace amounts. It is mostly found in the shell, not in the bean, nib or powder.

[Panserbjorne]

While there is inherently some lead in cacao, much more is added as it is processed. If you read more about it you will find that the processing is what causes you trouble. If you stick with raw you won't have to worry so much.

I get mine directly from NFL. www.rawfood.com I buy it in 2.5 pound bags.

[Panserbjorne]

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/art...?artid=1281312

Here you go.

[Fermentula]

I'm glad that my post created such an active and fun thread.

Speaking of chocolate bars, Dagoba just came back out with their Eclipse bar that is 87% dark. Very low sugar and very delicious. They pulled it off of the market about 6 months ago because of heavy metal contamination but now... IT'S BACKKKKKK!!!

One more carob comment, while I was vegan for 11 years, I can't tell you how many times people said one of two things "Here are some 'vegan chocolate' (insert food here), have some!" and then it's carob!! Or "Is chocolate vegan? Chocolate has milk in it." Then I have to explain that chocolate for children has milk in it, chocolate for adults does not.

,
Marc

[caedmyn]

Am I the only one who doesn't like dark chocolate? I like milk chocolate, especially in chocolate chip cookies, although I've never had chocolate cravings, but I don't even bother eating dark chocolate. And does cacao taste like dark chocolate?

[Panserbjorne]

I can't stand dark chocolate-I hide the cacao in my smoothies. That or mix it with honey or agave and coconut oil and then it's just fudge!

Cacao doesn't really taste like chocolate the way you are thinking of it. IT's a very different taste because of how bitter it is. When you add sugar then it's more like dark chocolate.

[Leilalu]

Originally Posted by firefaery

Okay people, but has anyone tried RAW carob? Totally different than the nastiness that is peddled in health food circles. Not chocolate, but way different than toasted carob -shudder-

I like it

But I think it is also an aquired taste.

The reasons I like it for my kids are simple. It looks like choc. chips. I got a 5 pound bag from Azure and I don't have to worry about giving it to them as a snack. It is unswetened and is chock full of minerals.

I can only handle so much carob at one time though. I do agree however , that it is not a substitute at ALL, but only if you want it to be, in certain recipes.

[Leilalu]

Originally Posted by caedmyn

Am I the only one who doesn't like dark chocolate? I like milk chocolate, especially in chocolate chip cookies, although I've never had chocolate cravings, but I don't even bother eating dark chocolate. And does cacao taste like dark chocolate?

now see, I LOVE dark chocolate. We're talking AS DARK AS IT GETS baby. I think it may be a subconcious thing to from the way I was raised. Maybe I feel like I am not cheating as much?lol

[NoTiGG]

here is an interesting article for you ladies :P

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articl...1/ai_n11857247

Personally I like both chocolate and carob... I even tried mixing them together and its pretty good. A company named Blessings makes these really good things called "Raweo's" that are made with carob and almonds and honey. The nuts are soaked before being dehydrated too.

ANd Fire... thats interesting that you say raw carob tastes different.... ive never tried it but now i want to!

[TigerTail]

I've chewed the pods, how raw is that?

I am surprised that my kids love dark chocolate as much as they do. I was not a huge dark chocolate lover as a child (of course, all we ever had was Special Dark- remember those mixed bags, & how those would always end up being left last? - we have so many more choices now). But even though my kids have the typical childhood 'no strong flavors' antipathy (no kraut, no anchovies, don't like stinky cheese, etc), dark chocolate of whatever strength is like manna to them.

I'm going to go eat my .88 Green & Black bar (um, one of the bagful I bought. I feel like I have a treasure hoard. It's heavy! It's not very traditional, but I'm going to make some fudge with some of it this Xmas. Maybe if I use cultured goat butter. )