Raw Cacao vs. Cocoa: What’s the difference? Which one is better?

Is there a difference aside from the two vowels? These two chocolate delights do have differences!

All the popular studies that rave about all chocolate’s wonderful health benefits are, sadly, not referring to your average chocolate bar bought in stores. Yes, indeed we have been mislead by “researchers”. The “chocolate" that they’re referring to is raw cacao.

Raw cacao is made by cold-pressing un-roasted cacao beans. The process keeps the living enzymes in the cacao and removes the fat which in turn made into cacao butter.

Cocoa looks the same but it’s not. Cocoa powder is raw cacao that’s been roasted at high temperatures. This will cause the enzyme content to be reduced and will lower the overall nutritional value because roasting changes the molecular structure of the cacao bean.

Now that you see how cacao is more beneficial than cocoa, what Happens when you cook raw cacao?

Currently, there had been no research to tell whether heating raw cacao will destroy antioxidant levels. But, we figure if you start off with cacao in its organic and raw form, it has to have better benefits than if you are starting with a product that is already heavily processed and heated.

To end in a fun tid-bit…

We have found that researchers have discovered that dairy can inhibit the absorption of antioxidants from raw cacao.

If you do make your favorite cacao shake or recipe you would be better off using a milk that is non-dairy like an almond or coconut milk for you to benefit from all those great antioxidants. Fact!