What’s the difference between Cacao and Cocoa?
Do you remember your first time drinking hot chocolate? The warmth in your hands, the taste on your tongue as the warm liquid soothed your system after being out in the cold. Often, our memories associated with hot chocolate make our hearts buzz and keep us yearning for more. Doesn’t it? Well, sort of.
Chocolate definitely has the potential to make us feel warm and fuzzy, but the additives and processing that most mainstream chocolate undergoes often strip the nutritional benefits that make cacao a superfood.
As chocolate has grown in production, companies have moved far from the chocolate that is packed with medicinal properties and, instead, switched to pseudo-chocolate mixes full of sugar. Cocoa powders, like Swiss Mix Hot Cocoa, are clear examples of this, as most cocoa powders in the world contain very little of the goodies that ceremonial cacao contains. It can’t just be sugar that differentiates cocoa from cacao, right? Right! Read on to discover what the main differences between cocoa and cacao are.
Where Chocolate Begins
It all begins with a seed, which is planted, watered, and cared for over 5-10 years before the first cacao pods emerge for harvesting. The beans are extracted from the pods, dried, fermented, and roasted to activate their medicinal properties and delicious chocolate taste. The beans are then ground into a paste or a powder and processed further to create different varieties of chocolate.
Cacao grounds from cacao paste, cinnamon sticks, and chilis.
The Split: Growing & Processing
Unfortunately, not all cacao plants are treated equally. The number of nutrient-rich soils on the earth is fading, meaning the soils on the lands where cacao grows differ widely. Mass-produced, mono-cropped cacao produces a product with lower nutrients than cacao is grown in nutrient-rich soil. Additionally, the level of care the plants get as they grow varies extremely from small, intergenerational, legacy families to mass farming operations that utilize underpaid workers and child labor. Most of the commercialized sources of cocoa and chocolate are not fair trade or ceremonial grade.
Remember when we spoke about the roasting process cacao undergoes? Well, to make that sugary cocoa powder, the heat is turned up, high. Roasting at high temperatures for a long time changes the molecular structure of the bean. This change lowers the nutritional value significantly. It becomes a highly processed item, with the natural cacao butter removed and often replaced with milk, butter, and sweetened with refined sugar, all of which affects the spirit of the plant as well as your body.
Emptied cacao pods..
What about Cacao Powder?
While it is possible to find cacao powder that is organic and fair trade, cacao powder is still highly processed, meaning a lower nutritional profile, and is missing the fat (cacao butter) essential for a full, more grounded cacao experience. Many of the living enzymes, healthy fat and most of the energetic properties of cacao have been destroyed through high levels of heat as well as the loss of the butter. While this form of cacao is great for baking and making other treats in larger batches to share, for both physical and energetic reasons, we believe ceremonial cacao is the best choice for regular daily and ceremonial use.
Why Choose Ceremonial Cacao?
Grown in a more natural environment with nutrient-rich soil, ceremonial cacao is handled with respect from the pod to the beverage in your hands. Sustainable practices such as fair trade certification and non-hybridization ensure the quality of cacao is ceremonial. Ceremonial cacao is traditionally crafted by fermenting and lightly toasting or sun-drying the beans, peeling the skins, and stone grinding the beans into a paste. This technique ensures that the bean’s natural fat remains intact, offering a sustained balance to the energy received from consuming the cacao.
While we don’t recommend drinking highly processed chocolate daily, we do suggest adding ceremonial cacao to your daily routine to improve your health on multiple fronts.
What small choices are we making on a daily basis that could transition into more sustainable ones with a little awareness and care? If anything, we pray that this small dose of information brings awareness to what kinds of chocolate you are eating and how it got to you. The little things add up, and with enough momentum, eventually, we may see that a very big impact has been made simply by shifting to integrity and sustainability. If we desire to contribute to a healthy world, it begins with us at home.
