If you want to satisfy your sweet tooth without feeling guilty, or like you indulged in decadence, these healthy chocolate options give the perfect alternative. While they still have sugar, they are less than other commercial brands you see tempting you at check out stands. Stashing these healthy chocolates in your cupboards for a quick late-night craving will leave you satisfied and feeling guilt-free.
Coconut Sugar Vs. Table Sugar
Does having coconut sugar in place of table sugar automatically qualify it as healthy chocolate? Well, according to Kris Gunnar, a nutrition writer with a degree in medicine, at “Healthline” there’s very little discernable health benefits between the two. While table sugar often gets referred to as empty calories, that means they offer no nutritional value. Conversely, coconut sugar offers minimal amounts of essential minerals such as zinc, calcium, and potassium. However, Gunnar notes you would have to eat extreme amounts of coconut sugar to even see the benefits of these minerals therefore outweighing the benefits themselves.
So, while there is some benefit to coconut sugar, it doesn’t automatically qualify a chocolate bar as healthy chocolate because it uses coconut sugar instead. It’s still a sugar alternative that should be consumed consciously in limited amounts.
Dark Chocolate Vs. Milk Chocolate
You might have heard that dark chocolate is the healthy chocolate and that is because it maintains more of the original cocoa. Cocoa in pure form contains high amounts of a special antioxidant known as flavonoids. The more cocoa is processed and mixed with high sugar concentration, milk, or cream, the lower the flavonoid levels become. Flavonoids have been found to lower blood pressure, reduce cell damage, and enhance the power of vitamin C when consumed properly. Since dark chocolate has a higher flavonoid concentration with a higher cocoa concentration, it becomes the healthy chocolate of the two.
Disclaimer, the price of a single bar may want to make you put down this healthy chocolate and never look back, but one bite will send you picking up every bar in the isle and hoarding them in your house. This healthy chocolate qualifies as gluten-free, kosher, verified non-GMO, and organic. By far, one of their most popular chocolate bars is the Vanilla Crunch Bar. That’s right it’s the grown-up healthy chocolate version of your childhood favorite. They use puffed quinoa for the satisfying crunch. Even better? This chocolate bar among many of their other products is both paleo-friendly and vegan. You might think this derives the healthy chocolate bar of any taste but your tastebuds will disagree after only a nibble of the healthy chocolate.
Ladies, there’s no denying when that time of the month rolls around our brain craves the only thing on earth that could possibly make us feel better. Chocolate. Well, lucky for us, Leah Nierman, founder, and CEO of Moody Girl Chocolate knew there was a better way to kick this craving. She made a healthy dark chocolate bar specifically for that time of the month. Aptly named ‘Dark Chocolate for that time of the month,’ this healthy chocolate bar comes infused with magnesium and B6 to ease some of those unpleasant symptoms. Often, when we crave chocolate during our periods, our bodies are telling us we really need magnesium, and dark chocolate typically contains 41 mg of magnesium. However, Leah’s healthy chocolate bar contains 400 mg of magnesium per serving. When you think about how much better you’ll feel after eating this healthy chocolate, and how much happier everyone around you will be after you’ve had it, you’ll have no issue spending $10 on one bar. It’s worth it for everyone’s sanity.
This healthy chocolate company boasts about their stone-ground process for making their chocolate. It’s a less invasive and processed manner of making chocolate that typically doesn’t include adding cocoa butter the way other processed chocolate does. This means the chocolate results in a grittier texture some people get hooked on. They have both chocolate bars and chocolate discs including flavors like a coconut chocolate bar. The coconut chocolate bar has 3 grams of protein and 11 grams of sugar in one serving. Like many of the other healthy chocolates on this list, they are non-GMO, certified organic, kosher, certified gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, and vegan. This healthy chocolate might not have the smooth texture you are used to, but it’s gritty and slightly spiced blend will leave you reaching for just one more piece.
The story behind the start-up of this healthy chocolate company will be enough to make you want to purchase some product alone, but once you see the ingredient list you’ll know you’ve made the right choice. Their delightful ‘Raspberry Dream Bar’ contains less than one gram of sugar per bar and has a total net carb of 4 grams. The macros on this nutrition label are nothing to scoff at with an additional 4 grams of protein and a total of 14 grams of fat. Additionally, the healthy chocolate company has plant-based protein within its chocolate. With the use of hemp seeds in the healthy chocolate, your body is getting a sprinkle of one of the few plant-based proteins that carry all nine essential amino acids. But this healthy chocolate company doesn’t just serve up health, they serve up the flavor with combinations dark chocolate, pistachio, and cashew or the classic combination of chocolate and peanut butter.
This healthy chocolate has more of the traditional creaminess you might expect from a chocolate bar. Their chocolate bars contain cocoa beans, cocoa butter, and cane sugar. While containing a slightly higher sugar content than some of the other healthy chocolate bars, they have a wide variety of flavor combinations such as ginger, cherry, toffee, turmeric spice, and grapefruit, and ginger. Ranging in dark chocolate percentage this might be the perfect first step in your dark chocolate journey. Not only do they provide healthy chocolate bars, but they also provide other healthy chocolate treats such as drinking chocolate and chocolate for baking.
With six selections of healthy chocolate, which are all gluten-free, paleo, vegan, and ethically sourced, you’ll start drooling before they are even out of the package. These chocolate bars are sweetened with organic coconut sugar and range from 72% dark chocolate to 95% dark chocolate. You can try all the healthy chocolate bars in a purchase of the variety pack which includes flavors like dark chocolate filled with cashew butter and dark chocolate with almonds and Himalayan pink salt. The healthy chocolate bars range in sugar content from as low as 1 gram of sugar per serving to the highest of 8 grams of sugar per serving.
The modern design of the packages makes this healthy chocolate look like the treat your self treat you’re willing to splurge on. These chocolate bars are gluten-free, soy-free, dairy-free, refined sugar-free, and vegan. This healthy chocolate company also uses coconut sugar to sweeten their bars. While it varies slightly from bar to bar, the salted caramel bar only contains 3.7 grams of sugar per serving. The goal of the company was to create chocolate for everyone that’s full of “antioxidants, amino acids, vitamins, and minerals.” They’ve succeeded in a highly popular and sweet-tooth satisfying healthy chocolate.
This healthy chocolate has a higher purpose than just satisfying that sweet tooth. Three specialty chocolate bars are designed to help you rest, focus, or boost your energy in their active bar. Specifically the healthy chocolate bar ‘active’ is blended with sports creatine, branched-chain amino acids, and natural caffeine. Guess what just became your new favorite pre-workout. The ‘rest’ healthy chocolate bar is sugar-free and uses an alternative sweetener thaumatin. Research from “ScienceDirect” reports thaumatin as a protein alternative sweetener derived from Thaumatococcus danielli a fruit in West Africa. This chocolate bar serves as the perfect nightcap due to its “sleepy supplement formula” described on the company website. The three healthy chocolate bars are vegan, gluten-free, keto, and dairy-free.
This healthy chocolate focuses on getting your gut in order with their pre-biotic infused chocolate bars. The companies design mimics 70s style design, ahh the decade of indulgence. Well, feel free to indulge again but this time with some added benefits. This vegan-friendly healthy chocolate contains only 1 gram of sugar per serving and is keto-friendly. They have three flavors including ‘pink sal floyd rocks,’ ‘mint puffdaddii,’ and ‘raspberry rhapsody.’ Each healthy chocolate bar is blended with pre-biotics and pro-biotics. Get groovy and gut healthy with this sneaky healthy chocolate you won’t be able to live without.
This healthy chocolate does not roast their cocoa beans which helps preserve the flavonol; remember those powerful little guys who pack a punch? In fact, the company name ‘Raaka’ means ‘raw’ in Finnish. Their unique flavors include ‘Green Tea Crunch,’ ‘Oak Milk,’ ‘Bananas Foster,’ and ‘Bourbon Cask Aged.’ All of the healthy chocolate at this company is vegan, gluten-free, soy-free, and dairy-free. The bright colored packaging and seemingly limitless and unique flavor of these healthy chocolate bars are enough to tempt you into buying one… or ten. A unique aspect to the nutrition label for these healthy chocolate bars does not only do they list the amount of sugar per serving, but they also list it in terms of what percent that amount is in regards to the daily value (DV). You’ll be able to pick the perfect bar for your needs that day and every day after.
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