Raw chocolate, how raw is it really?
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Make Mine Raw ... (Read-Only)
Commercial cocoa powder generally falls into the range of 10-12% residual fat (low-fat) or 20-24% residual fat (high fat), not 5%.The fat content of cocoa beans tends to be in the range ~ 47-53% but can vary outside these norms.Other than sites selling raw foods I have never heard a number as low as 40% (and one, Detox Your World, proposes a range of 12-50%). If someone can point to a more authoritative reference with these lower numbers, please let us know.One of the challenges with comparing ORAC values head-to-head is that of comparing apples with oranges. Does anyone else see the logical fallacies in Steve's approach?Steve's equation (34,300 / .57*.4) = ~150,438 ORAC per 100 grams of non-fat cocoa powder (because there are negligible amounts of antioxidants in the fat he is only considering the non-fat solids in the chocolate). However, to make the comparison fairer, we have to apply the same logic to the non-alkalized unsweetened cocoa powder (or any other chocolate to consider only the non-fat solid component).Thus, we need to divide the base ORAC score (80,933) by the non-fat solids component (.78 avg for high-fat cocoa powder and .89 for a low-fat powder) for a value of ~103,760 (high fat) or 90,935 for low-fat). Thus Steve's claim for relative high antioxidant levels for the non-fat powder in his chocolate holds true.
BUT - and this is a
big but - when someone purchases the 57% Ginger chocolate, they are buying and eating a product with an ORAC of 34,300 per 100 grams - not the "pure" non-fat cocoa powder. However, when someone purchases non-alkalized unsweetened cocoa powder they are getting the full 80,933 ORAC per 100 grams. Thus, on a
straight gram per gram comparison of what you're actually buying, unsweetened cocoa powder would seem to have a higher ORAC (809 versus 343).Unless I am totally missing something here again - so please feel free to tell me where the logical fallacies in my arguments are.Now, all of this said and done, there
is an unquantifiable aspect to consider, which is the raw food community's belief that there are other aspects of raw foods - including but not limited to the higher levels and higher vitality of the enzymes that are consumed - that need to be factored into the efficacy equation; that there is more going on than the raw numbers reveal. This makes sense on an intuitive level but, from what I have discovered, there is a lot of difference in opinion about the true value and efficacy of these non-quantifiable (or at the very least, difficult to quantify) factors.Another way to think of the comparison between the ORAC level of Sacred Ginger Chocolate and non-alkalized unsweetened cocoa powder (or any set of foods) is, "How much do I need to ingest to consume a specific ORAC level?"When asking this question it's important to note that although there are DRIs (Dietary Reference Intakes) and RDAs (Recommended Daily Allowances) for many antioxidants (e.g., Vitamin C, beta-carotene), to the best of my knowledge (and if anyone knows a specific reference please cite) there is neither a DRI nor an RDA for ORAC. Nonetheless, the ORAC "community" has set a recommended minimum daily ORAC intake at 5000, and assumes that all components of the ORAC score have the same value.At an ORAC of 34,300 per 100 grams, it is necessary to eat about 14.5 grams (a little over a half-ounce) of the Sacred Chocolate Ginger recipe to hit the magic number of 5000. Assuming that 40% of 57% of those 14 grams are fat (Steve's figures), that's about 27 calories from fat.At an ORAC level of 80,933 per 100 grams, it is necessary to eat about 6.2 grams of non-alkalized unsweetened cocoa powder less than one-quarter ounce) to reach the same ORAC level. At a residual fat level of 22% (high fat cocoa powder), calories from fat are about 12, for low-fat cocoa powder, calories from fat are half that.In reality, there's not a whole lot of difference here (other than cost) based on the known, quantifiable factors. I can eat a half-ounce of Sacred Chocolate Ginger chocolate or find some way to add a quarter-ounce (about a teaspoon) of non-alkalized cocoa powder into what I eat every day. Either way, it's not a bad thing to have chocolate and cocoa in your diet.The difference in preference has much to do with what each of us believes to be the value of "living foods" - whatever that means with respect to cocoa beans that have been processed into chocolate at any temperature.
