Happy Anniversary, chocophiles! A year ago today I started CHOCOfiles as a way to record and share my chocolate adventures. To celebrate, I went right to the source and tried a raw cacao bean, which is a first for me.
Cacao beans are the actual fruit of the cacao plant, the rawest form of "chocolate" one can find. You can find them at most health food stores. Don't let haters fool you. In case I haven't made this clear enough let me reiterate it now: yes, chocolate is in fact quite good for you and like most things, the closer you get to how it is in nature, the better it's going to be for you. That's why there are more benefits to eating dark chocolate than milk (the higher cacao content means more nutrients) and to eating raw chocolate than other types (the nutrients have been maintained through minimal processing). Consider this: a one ounce portion of cacao beans has 9g of fiber, 4g of protein and 25% of your recommended daily value of magnesium. That's not even to mention all of the good stuff that doesn't have a place on the nutrition label, like the antioxidants and polyphenols. When you compare this to something that is traditionally thought of as healthy, such as one ounce of almonds with 3g of fiber and 6g of protein, that's pretty impressive!
As someone who lives for super dark chocolate, I wasn't sure what to expect from cacao beans. How different could it really be from having a bar with lots of cacao nibs in it? For starters, smell is the dominant sensation when eating cacao beans, not taste. They are highly fragrant. When I opened the bag the air was filled with a pungent and sharp scent, like kombucha. They smell tangy with a lingering fruitiness underneath.
Cacao beans look like almonds except they have random dark spots across their woody exterior. To my surprise, they are lighter in color than the nibs that appear in most bars. This is because you have to crack the bean open to get to the niblets, which look like broken coffee beans. You know how coffee beans are super firm and break off into sharp, autonomous pieces rather than fine, almost powdery pieces? Cacao beans are the same. Consequently, cacao beans are super crunchy and super grainy. They may look like almonds, but they lack the buttery texture you get from almonds (and other nuts) as you chew them. When you chew a cacao bean, the nibs do not meld together like other nuts do. Instead, they continue to splinter into additional solid pieces. As you're probably gathering, it takes a lot of work to chew a cacao bean!
I don't know who had the idea to add sugar to cacao beans, but after eating them in the raw, I must applaud their insight. The raw beans left something to be desired, even for this ardent dark chocolate lover. Kind of like a fine dish needs a little salt, so too do cacao beans need a little sugar to really bring out their flavor. It's not that they weren't tasty. It's just that if you're looking for that rich, slightly sweet fix, you're not going to find it here. Cacao beans have an earthy, grassy flavor, like a cross between black coffee and fresh dill. Who knew?
This concludes the Anniversary Edition. Thank you so much for reading this week and every week, and thank you for all of your support along the way : ) Long live chocolate and the people who love it!
Cacao beans are the actual fruit of the cacao plant, the rawest form of "chocolate" one can find. You can find them at most health food stores. Don't let haters fool you. In case I haven't made this clear enough let me reiterate it now: yes, chocolate is in fact quite good for you and like most things, the closer you get to how it is in nature, the better it's going to be for you. That's why there are more benefits to eating dark chocolate than milk (the higher cacao content means more nutrients) and to eating raw chocolate than other types (the nutrients have been maintained through minimal processing). Consider this: a one ounce portion of cacao beans has 9g of fiber, 4g of protein and 25% of your recommended daily value of magnesium. That's not even to mention all of the good stuff that doesn't have a place on the nutrition label, like the antioxidants and polyphenols. When you compare this to something that is traditionally thought of as healthy, such as one ounce of almonds with 3g of fiber and 6g of protein, that's pretty impressive!
As someone who lives for super dark chocolate, I wasn't sure what to expect from cacao beans. How different could it really be from having a bar with lots of cacao nibs in it? For starters, smell is the dominant sensation when eating cacao beans, not taste. They are highly fragrant. When I opened the bag the air was filled with a pungent and sharp scent, like kombucha. They smell tangy with a lingering fruitiness underneath.
Cacao beans look like almonds except they have random dark spots across their woody exterior. To my surprise, they are lighter in color than the nibs that appear in most bars. This is because you have to crack the bean open to get to the niblets, which look like broken coffee beans. You know how coffee beans are super firm and break off into sharp, autonomous pieces rather than fine, almost powdery pieces? Cacao beans are the same. Consequently, cacao beans are super crunchy and super grainy. They may look like almonds, but they lack the buttery texture you get from almonds (and other nuts) as you chew them. When you chew a cacao bean, the nibs do not meld together like other nuts do. Instead, they continue to splinter into additional solid pieces. As you're probably gathering, it takes a lot of work to chew a cacao bean!
I don't know who had the idea to add sugar to cacao beans, but after eating them in the raw, I must applaud their insight. The raw beans left something to be desired, even for this ardent dark chocolate lover. Kind of like a fine dish needs a little salt, so too do cacao beans need a little sugar to really bring out their flavor. It's not that they weren't tasty. It's just that if you're looking for that rich, slightly sweet fix, you're not going to find it here. Cacao beans have an earthy, grassy flavor, like a cross between black coffee and fresh dill. Who knew?
This concludes the Anniversary Edition. Thank you so much for reading this week and every week, and thank you for all of your support along the way : ) Long live chocolate and the people who love it!