Taza Chocolate and Your Health

Taza Chocolate is 100% USDA certified organic. Our chocolate contains no artificial flavors, colorings, or sweeteners. No pesticides or herbicides are utilized on the farm, and the fertilizer used contains no chemicals or animal byproducts.

Our chocolate is minimally processed. We use authentic Mexican stone mills to grind the nibs for our chocolate. This creates the signature texture and explosive flavor in every bite of Taza Chocolate. Another reason for processing our chocolate as little as possible is to keep the health benefits of cacao intact.

We make Taza Chocolate in much the same way that chocolate has been made for thousands of years. Before Europeans turned cacao into candy by adding sugar, tempering, and conching it, chocolate was a ritual drink associated with health. To the indigenous peoples of the Americas, chocolate was an important source of energy, nutrients, and power.

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 - Dairy, Soy, and gluten free chocolate
 - Antioxidant properties of chocolate
 - Caffeine and theobromine in chocolate
 - Chocolate and your cardiovascular health

Dairy, Soy, and gluten free chocolate

Taza Chocolate is completely vegan friendly. It contains no dairy, lactose, soy, soy lecithin, wheat, or gluten. Taza chocolate poses no risk to sufferers of lactose intolerance, soy allergy, or Celiac disease. Our chocolate contains many of the vitamins and minerals that are essential to good health, including iron, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, and the vitamins A, B1, C, D, and E. And chocolate has more magnesium than any other food.

Antioxidant properties of chocolate

Chocolate contains a high level of antioxidants in the form of flavonols. Oxidation reactions can produce free radicals, which start chain reactions that damage cells. Antioxidants have the effect of slowing or preventing this oxidation, reducing cell damage. Specific antioxidant levels in chocolate can vary widely based on many factors, so we had Taza Chocolate evaluated for its antioxidant levels in a laboratory. The standard measure of antioxidants in food is called ORAC, or oxygen radical absorption capacity. Our 80% Dark Bar has 41800 μ mol TE/100g. This is VERY high for a chocolate bar – for example, Himalayan Goji Berries, famed for being a “superfood”, have an ORAC value of 25300 μ mol TE/100g.

Caffeine and theobromine in chocolate

Caffeine is the world's most widely consumed psychoactive substance – a plant-derived alkaloid that stimulates the central nervous system. There is a great deal of misinformation on the Internet regarding the presence of caffeine in chocolate. For the record, there IS a small amount caffeine in chocolate. More importantly, chocolate contains another psychoactive alkaloid called theobromine, in quantities anywhere from 2 to 5 times greater than its caffeine content. 

Theobromine, while chemically similar to caffeine, has a “longer, gentler high” in comparison, and is believed to be non-addictive. Theobromine reduces blood pressure by stimulating the heart and dilating blood vessels. The alkaloid has also been shown to reduce cough more effectively than codeine, and to help in the treatment of asthma (by relaxing smooth muscle tissue).
 

chocolate and your cardiovascular health

Taza Chocolate is made from cacao, a plant product, and contains no dairy. As such, all Taza products are cholesterol free. On paper, chocolate, because of its cocoa butter, is high in saturated fat (about 2/3 of the total fat). However, the saturated fat in chocolate is about one part stearic acid to one part palmitic acid. Stearic acid has been shown to be cholesterol neutral, meaning it does not affect levels of either HDL (“good”) or LDL (“bad”) cholesterol. The remaining fat (about 1/3 of the total) is oleic acid, which is a healthy monounsaturated fat also found in high concentrations in olive oil.

In addition, semisweet chocolate has been shown to suppress platelet activation thereby increasing blood flow. And studies have indicated that chocolate may relax vascular tissue and blood vessel walls, also aiding in general cardiovascular health.