Love, Chocolate, and Broccoli?
Dr. Harlan Sparer, Tempe Chiropractor
I enjoy both broccoli and chocolate, without combining them in the same bite. Steamed or stir fried, broccoli is full of nutrients and tasty. Imagine boiling it for awhile and then cooling it. Now imagine that just for good measure you boiled it again and combined it with the main ingredient in Drano, carefully removing the Drano afterwards. Now, let’s suppose you offered me a percent of this yummy treat or added it in a small amount as “liquor” to what was supposed to be broccoli. I’ll bet you’d say your level of desire to eat this is “not so much.” Essentially, that is what is being done to the chocolate you eat today. It is boiled repeatedly, treated with harsh chemicals, and then sold to you as chocolate when it contains a small amount of chocolate “liquor.” If you’re lucky, you are overspending for “healthy” chocolate with a percent on it. What they don’t say is how nutritionally bankrupt it is after boiling it several times.
I have a relatively simple solution for you. Make it yourself. If you use chocolate ingredients that are cold pressed and expose them to a low heat of about 100 degrees Farenheit, the results can be divine and will have some interesting effects. It takes about an hour to make with utensils you probably have at home.
Divine and interesting effects, you say? Danielle Piomelli of the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego made some fascinating discoveries in 1996. It appears that Chocolate has a substance in it dubbed anandamide. There are some schools of Neurochemistry that are beginning to tout it as an aid to depression due to its biochemical effects. It targets nerves that are pleasure centers in the brain. Because these substances are heat sensitive, the multiple boiling degrades most of it, along with oils and fats (making your “healthy” “percentage” chocolate nutritionally nasty). This means that it takes a whole lot more of the boiled chocolate to satiate you than the raw variety. Enjoying raw chocolate means you are eating far less sugar to no sugar as well.
What is raw chocolate in real life and how can I get some? I confronted this problem years ago when I was informed that I am a diabetic. Sadly, there was little information on the topic and nothing written of note. The ingredients were only available online and there were no recipes published. There is little in the way of resources now as well, so I composed a recipe book and teach free classes in how to make it yourself. I teach about how to make it and where to get the ingredients. My youtube channel , Drharlan11 has several videos about this topic also. My book has more about this topic, too.