Eat chocolate — it’s a superfood

For breakfast every morning Dr Aseem Malhotra, a consultant cardiologist, eats chocolate. Not, alas, a few salted caramels. Nor is this a case of “do as I say, not as I do”. What Malhotra puts on his porridge is a couple of teaspoons of Choc Chick raw cacao powder — and he is evangelical about its benefits.

“I consider raw chocolate a superfood,” he tells me. Like broccoli and blueberries? He laughs. “Yes, if you go for low-sugar versions. It’s full of antioxidants and gives you magnesium too.”

Guilt-free chocolate is the food world’s Holy Grail. As Orya Blumenfield, a chocolatier and one of the founders of Rawr, notes: “If you hear ‘chocolate’ you think of an unhealthy food, so if we can make it into something good, that people still enjoy, that’s a real achievement.”

Rawr, which launched nearly eight years ago and can be bought in Planet Organic, has benefited hugely from a surge in demand for raw chocolate, says Blumenfield: “We started with just a stall in Cambridge. Now we sell all over Europe.” The chocolate, made with beans from Peru and Ecuador, has no refined white sugar.

There are many other raw chocolate brands too. Brontie & Co, made in West Sussex, consists of 85 per cent dark raw chocolate with a carob, apple and grape plant syrup to add sweetness. Others include Ombar, which comes in flavours including cranberry and mandarin, Conscious Chocolate, and the beautifully-packaged Raw Halo, which is dairy- and gluten-free and won a Great Taste Award last year.

Flavour-wise, they’re a long way from Dairy Milk. If your palate is used to vegetable-fat filled choccie, raw cacao may — at first — make you think of bitter dust. It does grow on you.