Soyagera journey into healthier living

I’ve ALWAYS hated Valentine’s Day. If you’re not in a relationship, it sucks. If you are in a relationship, there’s pressure. If you’ve been with someone for awhile, well, there’s still pressure. My hubby and I long ago decided that Valentine’s Day just wasn’t for us. It is the epitome of consumerist thinking: stores flooded with paper cards, mylar balloons, polyester stuffed animals and cheaply-produced candies, all marketed in a way to elicit a feeling of guilt in those who choose NOT to recognize who they love with these “special” gestures. Blah.

Of the millions of dollars spent on Valentine’s gifts, a large chunk of that goes toward chocolates. Now, I am not about to bash chocolate.  Chocolate is one of the finest foods produced and all the recent hype about its antioxidant properties is true if one buys the *right* kind of chocolate. So, what is the right kind of chocolate?

For this blogger, excellent chocolate has to meet the following criteria:

1. Fair Trade
Cocoa (along with coffee, cotton, and other crops) is one of the world’s most exploited products. Small farms and farmers have lost business and wages due to larger conglomerates taking over, growing in amounts that no single farmer could keep up with, and selling at amounts that no farmer could afford to match.  Just as the private farmer is disappearing in America,  such is the case in parts of the world where there is no other option for income than farming. It’s just good ethics to buy Fair Trade. Wouldn’t you rather consume something that was grown as someone’s livelihood, cared for, tended, and something that received positive energy versus a giant crop used only to support Big Business?

To learn more about Fair Trade cocoa specifically, click here.
To learn more about the Fair Trade Federation, click here.

2. Organic
Let’s just take a look at what one can find in any given Hershey’s chocolate (taken from Hershey’s allergen info). For the sake of brevity, I have taken the obvious ingredients (milk, butter, cocoa) off the list:

• Acid whey
• Anhydrous milk fat
• Butter oil
• Calcium caseinate
• Casein
• Reduced minerals whey
• Sodium caseinate
• Sweetened condensed whey
• Whey protein concentrate
• Defatted peanuts
• Hydrogenated peanut oil
• Partially defatted peanuts
• Peanut flavor
• Hydrogenated lecithin
• Soy protein
• Hydrogenated vegetable protein
• Soya
• Soya lecithin
• Soybean oil
• Hydrogenated vegetable
• Modified food starch
• Hydrogenated coconut oil
• Enriched flour
• Hydrogenated starch
• Wheat flour hydrolysate
• Malt
• Modified food starch
• Corn fiber
• Corn oil
• Corn syrup
• Corn syrup solids
• Cornstarch
• Dextrin
• Dextrose
• Flaked milled corn
• High fructose corn syrup
• High maltose corn syrup
• Hydrogenated glucose syrup
• Hydrogenated starch hydrolysate
• Maltodextrin
• Xanthan gum
• Modified cornstarch
• Foodstarch
• Hydrogenated vegetable oil
• Vegetable oil

Compare it to chocolate products from one of my favorite companies, Liz Lovely

Sandwich Cookie (Organic Unbleached Wheat Flour, Organic Sugar, Expeller Pressed Canola Oil, Organic Peanut Butter [Organic Roasted Peanuts, Organic Palm Oil, Salt], Partially Defatted Peanut Flour, Organic Palm Fruit Oil, Organic Cocoa, Cocoa [Processed with Alkali], Salt, Organic Unsweetened Chocolate, Natural Flavor, Organic Corn Starch, Baking Soda, Soy Lecithin), Organic Fair Trade Dark Chocolate (organic cocoa liquor, organic cane sugar, organic cocoa butter, organic cocoa powder, organic vanilla).
* Certified Organic

I’ll let you research all the above ingredients and decide for yourself whether you’ll choose organic chocolates next time!

3. Vegan
For me, this is big. It’s actually not as hard as you might think to find vegan chocolate. I was never a milk chocolate fan, so I don’t miss that (although great vegan “milk” chocolate is available), and high quality, dark chocolate is easily found in most grocery stores. My local store even sells fair-trade options. Vegan chocolate is just cocoa and cocoa butter, maybe some sugar. That’s it. It’s not adulterated by milk or milk by-products. The taste is pure, chocolatey goodness.

Some of my favorite chocolates, cookies, and other fantastic goodies come from Liz Lovely, which I mentioned above. All of their products are fair-trade, organic, and vegan. What could better for YOUR valentine?

Right now, you can get free shipping on orders over $29 (so easy to do; everything is so yummy!)by entering the code: TRUELOVE. And join the Fanclub! The Liz Lovely crew offers deals and fun contests (for free cookies, of course!) all of the time.