Originally published August 26 2005
Eat your chocolate raw for healthy benefits
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
The health benefits of raw cacao beans are astounding, as the beans have very high levels of magnesium and antioxidants.
Wolfe, whose book Naked Chocolate was released in April, says all you have to do is eat chocolate in its natural form: raw, untreated, naked cacao.
And that's cacao --- the unprocessed pods of the cacao plant, pronounced kuhkow --- not cocoa --- the powder made from roasted cacao beans.
This may be an exaggeration, but then again, if his health claims for chocolate are true, maybe it's not.
Wolfe says the raw cacao bean, native to Central America, is one of nature's most powerful superfoods.
Cocoa powder, such as the kind we typically use in baking or for hot chocolate, is "defatted and treated with chemicals or alkaline salts," Wolfe said.
"They are a bit bitter," he said, but the taste is excellent once you get used to it, he added.
Wolfe says new studies are showing that chocolate is perhaps the leading food source of mag nesium, with 10 times more antioxidants than blueberries and 20 times more than red wine.
Author of The Sunfood Diet Success System, he teaches across the United States, Canada, Europe and the South Pacific, following an annual tour of classes and speaking events.
Chocolate was one of the great foods of ancient Central and South American cultures, Wolfe says --- the Aztecs, Toletcs, Mayans and others used cacao beans as a form of currency.
"And one thing the ancients didn't have was blenders," Wolfe jokes.
Wolfe's new book talks about how to prepare raw cacao beans, including how to make brownies, truffles, smoothies and shakes.
There are also recipes for a raw chocolate drink.
Recipe from Naked Chocolate: The Astonishing Truth About The World's Greatest Food by David Wolfe and Shazzie, 2005.
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