As a healthy food enthusiast, I've struggled to both stay in line with my health goals and my love of good dessert – especially chocolate. With all the processed sugars, preservatives, additives and all else that goes into chocolate, I usually stayed away from it. However, Eating Evolved changed the game.
Eating Evolved offers several drool-worthy products that are gluten free, dairy free, soy free, refined sugar free, paleo and vegan. And, despite being everything-free, their chocolate is to-die-for.
I'm always reading labels to search for unrecognizable ingredients, and try to stay away from products that are overly processed or high in added sugar. (It's time to graduate from the low-fat mindset; added sugar is the sneaky dietary downfall we should avoid).
Luckily, new food brands are creating treats that both satisfy our cravings and provide quality nutrition. The Eating Evolved guiding principle is "Chocolate: It's Food, Not Candy," and that couldn't be more true for this decadent chocolate.
Primal Chocolate
Eating Evolved offers several bomb chocolate bar combinations, including Signature Dark, Almond Sea Salt, Crunchy Caramel and Midnight Coconut (pictured above). The base ingredients of the chocolate are incredible - just organic cacao, organic coconut sugar and organic cacao butter.
The Midnight Coconut bar is the one completely unsweetened variety, and is 100% cacao with shredded organic coconut. The 100% cacao label means that the bar is made completely of cacao with no sugar to break up its bitterness, so it's not for the faint-of-heart. However, the shredded coconut adds a nice flavor that evens out the bar's bitterness in the best way.
Another favorite flavor is the Crunchy Caramel, which has chunks of real organic coconut sugar scattered throughout. This bar is ideal for those still getting used to the more bitter-tasting flavor of pure dark chocolate.
#SpoonTip: For an extra-decadent dessert, dip a chunk of Eating Evolved chocolate in some almond or coconut butter.
Coconut Butter Cups
As a diehard Reese's fan, I was a bit skeptical of these at first, especially seeing that they contained very little sugar. After the first bite, I was sold. These coconut butter cups are seriously life-changing, and the nutrition is incredible. Each cup contains only 4 grams of sugar (as compared to 11 grams in a Reese's cup), all of which is organic coconut sugar.
Other flavors include Caramel & Sea Salt, Banana Cream, Mint Cream and an all-new Strawberry Cream. My personal favorite is the Caramel & Sea Salt, but all of them taste so convincingly sweet that it's hard to believe they only have 4 grams of sugar.
Hot Chocolate
This is the product I'm most excited about. Eating Evolved proves that it's possible to have delicious hot chocolate without drinking an excess of added sugar. This drink has only 8 grams of sugar per serving, and just as much protein.
The best part about this particular hot chocolate is not the low sugar content, but the addition of grass-fed collagen. Collagen is an incredible dietary supplement that adds protein and improves growth and quality of hair, skin and nails.
As if this weren't enough, the drink mix has sizable chunks of real cacao. Yum.
Eating Evolved also offers other products, including roasted coconut butter (in a jar, like peanut butter), and chocolate spread (think Nutella, but way better for you). Although I didn't get to try these spreads, I can only imagine that they are as excellent as the rest of Eating Evolved's options.
Chocolate: It's Food, Not Candy.
The guiding principle of Eating Evolved shows what this company is all about – they provide a whole-food approach to dessert and prove that a sugar-overload isn't necessary to enjoy chocolate. Even more, I noticed that after eating a good portion of their chocolate, I didn't feel the need to keep shoving it in my face. With most overly sweet desserts, it's easy to overindulge, but I didn't find this issue with Eating Evolved.
Overall, this company is taking incredible strides to reshape the chocolate industry. As a healthy food enthusiast, it is so important to support new, health-conscious brands. Any change in the food industry is more powerful with support from many like-minded, health-conscious consumers.