Pure Cacao, upgrade your chocolate habits.

Growing up as a kid I was never that into the real sweet stuff. Yet I did like the warming feeling that a cup of hot chocolate gave me. The closest I came to something I’d liked was the old fashioned cacao powder my grandmother used from the Dutch brand Droste. I made hot chocolate using that, while adding a pinch of cinnamon to it to spice it up! Nowadays I have stepped up my game with a more pure form. 

So what’s the difference between that powder I used for my drink when I was young and the product I’m using now for my hot chocolate?

1. Cacao powder.

The beans are fermented, dried, roasted and cracked into nibs. Then, the nibs are pressed to remove 75% of their cacao butter. This leaves us with chocolate liquor. The pasty liquor is dried and then ground into unsweetened cocoa powder.

Interesting to know that there are two types of unsweetened cocoa powder: dutch-processed and natural.
Dutch-process cocoa powder starts with cocoa beans that have been washed in an alkaline solution of potassium carbonate. This wash neutralizes their acidity. So, dutch-process cocoa powder is neutral. Alkalising cocoa makes it darker in color, mellow in flavour, and dissolves easily into liquids.

The brand I use, Pure Kakaw is only slightly roasted, in this way the end product is still packed with vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, flavonoids and theobromine. Nothing has been added, nothing taken out and processed as little as possible.

2. Nutrition Values & Health benefits of cacao.

Cacao fruit comes from the Theobroma Cacao tree, which literally means ‘food of the gods’.
Well the god’s definitely know how to fuel their body with the right nutrients. As it is high in antioxidants and rich in minerals.

The flavonoids in cacao dilate blood vessels, which lowers blood pressure and increases energy. They have demonstrated a variety of effects in central nervous processes, and there is promising preliminary evidence for protection from neurodegradation, decreased neuroinflammation, and modulation of neuronal function through interaction with a number of signaling pathways. Read more.

Those beans have the highest vegetable source of iron, containing 46.8 mg/100g, while spinach, which is said to be rich in iron, contains only 4.1 mg/100g. This makes it a good attribution when you’re a woman and having your period, since heavy periods with a quite some blood  loss can cause iron deficiency

Cacao is also among the top performers when it comes to magnesium. It contains up to 500 mg/100g. Magnesium helps relax the muscles and prevent them from cramping or spasming. So it might be a great addition for you after a fierce workout. Other nutrients are sulfur, copper, calcium, cobalt, boron, B vitamins and a high amount of protein.

3. Stacking with truffles.

Stacking involves combining psychedelics (usually a magic mushroom containing the psychoactive compound psilocybin) with other non-psychedelic substances to enhance the drug’s effects.

The Origins of Stacking Psychedelics:
The Aztec Combo of Psilocybin Mushrooms and Cacao.

The Aztec
The most interesting example is the practice of the Aztecs of Mexico of combining psilocybin-containing mushrooms with liquid cacao. This ancient combination was referred to as “cacahua-xochitl,” which literally means “chocolate-mushrooms.”  In combination it has beautifully elevating effects, especially when mixed with a pinch of magic!

Other ways of stacking include the following: 

• Lion’s Mane (Hericium erinaceus) mushroom:
  Research suggests it can be used for cognitive support.
• Niacin: a B vitamin used by the body to turn food into energy.
• Syrian rue: a plant native to the Mediterranean Sea and the western United States known for its stimulant and hallucinogenic effects at low doses.

For example, both Lion’s Mane mushrooms and Syrian Rue are monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs). MAOIs have long been used in psychedelic admixtures (such as ayahuasca) to extend and enhance the effects of 5-HT2a receptor agonists, essentially preventing the degradation of dopamine or serotonin, which leaves a person feeling happy and joyful for longer.

Further, cacao is believed to enhance psychedelic mushrooms because it acts as a vasodilator, meaning it can widen the blood vessels and lower blood pressure. In the context of consuming psychedelic mushrooms, this increased blood flow can encourage the body to uptake more active components of the drug.
Source

4. Ceremonies and practices

There are plenty ways of adding a cup of this goodness to your weekly wellbeing practices. Ways I’m using it are for example as a heart opener before I give my psychedelic guidance. It’s warming, nourishing and makes people feel at comfort. Personally it brings me back to a place of warmth and love in my childhood. Cacao’s heart-opening properties are often attributed to its high levels of theobromine, a mild stimulant that’s believed to temporarily boost mood.

Another way of incorporating it into your daily live is by adding it into our meditation practice before you connect with whatever art form we choose. It can be a beautiful way to inspire this practice. Drinking a cup of ceremonial Pure Kakaw before meditating has the potential to help you settle into the practice deeper.

Another great pairing is journaling. Taking time to reflect on your day while writing out your thoughts and feelings allows you to make more space for new sensations to arrive. Journaling can be a way to acknowledge and release patterns or programming that may no longer serve you and make space for more beauty to come.

5. Less magic more practical.

Well most of us won’t do ceremonies on a day to day basis, and perhaps that’s even for the best to stay grounded a little bit here are some options when you could use cacao on a regular basis. I suggest you’d explore different ways to integrate it in your current nutrition approach. Hereby some ideas.

 

Morning coffee
The active stimulant in raw cacao is called theobromine. Theobromine is kind of similar to caffeine, but its effects are milder and longer lasting. Imagine the feeling you get after waking up from a pleasant night’s sleep.

If you’re someone who enjoys a morning boost but can feel overwhelmed by the effects of coffee, then raw cacao could be a good alternative. Or even combine the two.

One study showed that when you combine cocoa (the less potent version of raw cacao) and caffeine from coffee, it can reduce caffeine-related anxiety and increase attention span. When raw cacao and coffee are combined, they seem to work synergistically to balance out the effects of one another.

Check out these incredible recipes and discover your own favorite way to enjoy the nourishing effects of raw cacao. So that’s all for now folks – I hope you are going to explore the nourishing and health boosting effects of adding cacao. And finding (new) ways to implement it in your personal lifestyle!