Jim:
> Applying the evolutionary template, to me it's not much of a surprise
> that there are very real concerns with chocolate.  Being a new world
> food, weve only had 10,000 years or less to even have had a chance at
> consuming the stuff -- and that's if you're a Native American.
> Europeans have only a few hundred years at best.  I just really don't
> know.

Being New World does not necessarily make a food non-Paleo (btw, East Asian
foods would also be New World to Europe, and European, Asian and American
foods would be New World to Africa), as Todd Moody and others have
explained. If it did, winter squash, pumpkin and turkey would not be
considered Paleo. It is one clue that a food might not be Paleo and should
be investigated further, but it is not a determinant in itself.

My best guess is that pure cacao powder (and cacao butter) could be
considered Paleo because it is similar to other fruits, is edible raw and
has not had to be detoxified from an earlier toxic form (as far as I know).
There are factors that make it a little questionable, however, such as the
fact that it is very bitter in its pure, raw form, it contains unusual
components (including some regarded as possibly harmful), has a different
component profile than most other fruits or seeds, and was not eaten more
than 10,000 years ago. But nothing eliminates it from being Paleo, as far as
I can see. 

A specific food doesn't have to have been eaten during the Paleolithic era
to be considered a Paleo "type" of food (winter squash, pumpkin and turkey
are again good examples here). What is considered Paleo is based on the
*type* of food that was eaten during the Paleolithic era (meats, seafood,
fruits, non-starchy vegetables, nuts, seeds, water, etc.), not the specific
individual foods that were eaten. This is part of the reason why there is
disagreement on what foods should be considered Paleo.

Even natural dark chocolate bars could theoretically be healthy if the
benefits of the positive cacao components outweigh the harm of the negative
cacao components, sugar and soy lecithin. Anti-fat faddists of course also
regard cocoa butter as necessarily unhealthy because it is a fat, but that
is unfounded speculation, as far as I know. 

It's interesting how few people are promoting cocoa butter as a health food,
not even the chocolate manufacturers. That is another indicator that the
anti-fat view still holds sway.