Re: cocoa: I looked into this stuff in some detail a couple of years ago, when a friend of mine introduced me to what he calls "pharmaceutical grade chocolate".? This is raw cacao nibs, very pricey, unsweetened and therefor bitter.? It seems that the cacao tree is pretty much unimproved from its wild Amazonian ancestor.? The fruit is called a pod, with a hard shell, a sweet pulp and several beans, like tamariind.? The beans are fermented in the pods, hulled out, dehydrated without adding heat beyond what the climate naturally provides, and sold to raw foodists either in whole bean form or, more often, as a coarse kibble ("nibs").? It has so much caffeine-analog that the amount I ground in the spice grinder and mixed into one cup of almond milk to approximate the chocolate milk of my childhood was enough to give me the jitters.? Since then I have only used it occasionally, such as when I have to drive late at night.

Raw cacao is hugely controversial.? On the one hand it is loaded with antioxidants and flavinoids (which are not present in commercial chocolate because they are destroyed by the processing) and magnesium.? Many premenstrual women have greatly increased magnesium needs. This does a lot to explain the chocolate cravings that often go with PMS. (I have never experienced these cravings because I have always eaten a lot of leafy greens and, when I'm not broke, avocados, almonds, cashews and Brazil nuts, all equally good sources of magnesium.) On the other hand, well, it's a drug.? It's hard on the liver, kidneys and adrenals.? At dosages of 40+ beans (enough to make about six cups of my raw chocolate almond milk) hallucinogenic effects have been reported.? The native peoples who were the first humans to use this plant treat the bean as the drug it is, using it for ritual and medicine, not food.? (The part they eat is the sweet pulp between the beans, which is reported to taste like the chocolate pudding of your dreams.? The pulp is extremely perishable and therefore not available outside cacao's growing area.)? 

One more note: I learned the hard way that heat destroys most of the caffeine-like effects.? I left a bag of cacao nibs in the car in the July sun for several days.? They looked the same but when I ate them they did nothing.? I had to pull over and sleep in a parking lot.

~ Joan


 

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Swayze <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Mon, Aug 24, 2009 4:48 pm
Subject: Re: Back to PALEO!









I respectfully disagree. It is probably true that, as bad as they are, sugar and milk are better for you than the cocoa.  Our curious fascination with this very nonpaleo substance baffles me.?
?

Jim Swayze?

www.fireholecanyon.com?

Sent from my iPhone?