DARK CHOCOLATE

Over 300 scientific studies have been conducted establishing the nutritional benefits of dark chocolate in helping to prevent and reverse disease. Dark chocolate has been shown to improve mood, reduce high blood pressure, increase good cholesterol, help in preventing heart attacks and strokes, aid in improving memory and fighting dementia, and even assisting in reducing type 2 diabetes.

COCOA BUTTER

Cocoa butter is a good fat from cocoa beans, which is extracted after the beans are cleaned, roasted, stripped and milled into what's known as "cocoa liquor". Cocoa butter is a rich blend of good fats (including Omega-3 fatty acids) and antioxidants. It contains vitamin K and vitamin E, both of which help to reduce inflammation. 

HONEY

Honey has been known for its nutritional benefits since ancient times. Honey is antibacterial, antifungal, antimicrobial and has antiseptic qualities. With a low pH, honey prevents bacterial growth and its antioxidants help clean up free radicals. The mineral content of honey is, copper, iron, magnesium, calcium, phosphate, sodium chlorine, potassium, and zinc. Athletes have long used honey to enhance their athletic performance.

Beneficial Sugars

Simply put, there are good sugars and there are bad sugars. While it’s true that all sugars eventually do break down into glucose, the difference between a good sugar and a bad sugar is what your body has to do in order to break down the sugar and what nutritional value is gained in the process of breaking down the sugar.

Bad sugars have no nutritional value and cause widespread inflammation in the body. The good sugars are the essential sugars the body cannot produce itself, yet are required for optimal health. The essential sugars strengthen the immune system, are safer for diabetics and support the body in new tissue formation. The most commonly known good sugar is glucosamine chondroitin.

Good sugars are typically found in a wide variety of fruits and vegetables and in the saps, nectars, gums and gels that come directly from nature with little or no processing. Only limited processing will preserve these essential good sugars and their corresponding nutritional values. Because of modern farming, agricultural practices and food processing it is believed that our diets today have become deficient in the essential good sugars. Cocolasses® is made with essential good sugars. 

Muscle Recovery

Legend has it that the 9-time Olympic champion and record holder Mark Spitz drank a quart of chocolate milk after every workout. Legend also has it that Mark Spitz mentored the Olympian Michael Phelps and told him to drink a quart of chocolate milk after every workout.

Anecdotal evidence was there for years among elite athletes that drinking chocolate milk after exercise promotes muscle recovery. It was not until 2006 that Joel Stager and his team at the University of Indiana tested this theory. The study was published in the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism concluded that drinking chocolate milk after exercise did indeed promote muscle recovery. Since that time numerous other studies have confirmed this finding.

So how can it be that drinking chocolate milk after exercise could possibly be good for you? It turns out that it is the polyphenols, an antioxidant in the chocolate that carries the nutrients from the milk into the muscle after exercise.

Unfortunately, most of the chocolate milks in the marketplace today are made with high fructose corn syrup or processed white sugar that have little-to-no nutritional value. Because Cocolasses® has a base of dark chocolate and blackstrap molasses with naturally occurring antioxidants, B vitamins and minerals, it is the answer for the health-conscious consumer who wants to drink chocolate milk after exercise but does not want to consume unhealthy ingredients.

The connection between cocoa/molasses and weight loss

A newly released study from the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry found that the antioxidants or the flavanols in cocoa prevented mice fed a high fat diet from gaining weight and it also lowered their blood sugar levels. This study suggests that eating chocolate may prevent obesity, improve glucose tolerance, and might prevent type 2 diabetes. This is great news for chocolate lovers, but it must be noted that this applies only to dark chocolate.

Another study published in Nutrition Horizon, Dr. Weisinger and his team at La Trobe University studied two groups of mice fed an identical high fat diet. One group was fed molasses with their high fat diet. After 10 weeks, the group that was fed molasses had less body weight and less body fat. Scientists believe the antioxidants or the polyphenols in the molasses is what helped the mice to shed the weight.

In both of these studies, it is the antioxidants, specifically the flavanols and the polyphenols, in the cocoa and in the molasses that have been strongly implicated to be the source for the weight loss. Because Cocolasses® has a base of cocoa and blackstrap molasses, it may help with weight loss too.

The benefits of fermented foods

The number one reason to consume fermented foods is because the fermenting process is good for gut health by making food easier to digest and absorb the vitamins and minerals in the food.

Fermented foods restore gut health by providing proper balance of beneficial bacteria “probiotics” in the digestive system. When fermentation occurs, the sugars and the carbohydrates are converted or broken down by the good bacteria.

Fermented carbohydrates do not place the same burden on the pancreas as unfermented carbohydrates.

Many of today’s allergies, food and chemical intolerances are believed to have a root cause of an improper balance of bacteria in the gut. When the correct balance of good bacteria is in the gut, it increases overall nutrition and the immune system is better equipped to fight against viruses, disease and harmful bacteria.

The fermenting process actually increases the nutritional value of the food, especially the B vitamins, making it much easier to absorb.

With the proper balance of gut bacteria and digestive enzymes, the body will absorb more nutrients on its own and the need for dietary supplements may not be required.

Cocolasses® is fermented and has a very high mineral and B vitamin content that is easily absorbable. The carbohydrates in Cocolasses® are broken down, this puts far less burden on the pancreas making it good for gut health.