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Please note that any information given on this site is not intended as medical advice and should not be taken as such.

Is ‘Raw Chocolate’ Truly Raw?

by Liz Bygrave (January 2012)

There is no doubt that raw chocolate is a very different entity to ‘normal’ chocolate, which is roasted at high Raw Cacao Pods temperatures. It is possible to tell this both from the taste, and from it’s effects on the body (most people for instance find cacao more stimulating than roasted cocoa, and I find that my skin reacts more favourably to cacao than to cocoa).

However, it is apparently very difficult for the producers to control the fermentation process - an entirely natural process, and very necessary to make the beans edible, but one which can reach into the 50 degrees range.

Wild Balinese Cacao is the one that is most likely to be raw as they do their best to keep the fermentation temperature as low as possible by turning the beans in the fermentation boxes.

Big Tree Farms, who produce Wild Balinese Cacao, also keep extraction temperatures very low (the process whereby the protein and fibre which becomes chocolate powder, and the fat - cacao butter - are separated from each other. However, be aware that this means that Balinese cacao powder has a higher fat content than other ‘raw’ cacao powders because it is impossible to remove as much fat at such low extraction temperatures.

So...there are apparently NO guarantees that ANY so-called raw chocolate (ie not just the cacao sold on this site) is actually truly raw.

All one can say is that ‘raw’ cacao is as minimally processed as possible, and the Balinese cacao is the one to go for if this issue is important to you, because they try their hardest to keep the temperatures within, or as near as possible to, raw temperatures.

(But, bear in mind that, although delicious, balinese cacao powder is trickier to use because the higher fat content means that it may not always work as well in raw chocolate recipes, both mine and other people’s, which have been created using ecuadorian or peruvian powders.)

Click here to buy ‘raw’ cacao products from Bali, Ecuador and Peru