Healthy chocolate from Mood Foods

*Mood Foods is a new company with the sole focus of creating ‘chocolate with integrity’. The company claims never to use refined sugar in the chocolate it produces, favouring agave nectar – a natural syrup from the Blue Weber Cactus of Mexico – as a sweetener that has a low glycaemic index (GI). *

Mood Foods uses as many Fairtrade products as possible and is registered with The Vegan Society. In addition, the chocolate is certified organic with the Soil Association.

“We always use unroasted cocoa,” said Mood Foods founder Richard Turner. “Roasting is a nutritionally destructive part of normal chocolate manufacturing that ordinarily robs most chocolate of its potential health benefits.”

Phytonutrients (flavanols) occur naturally in cocoa and have been linked to numerous health benefits such as reducing blood pressure in people with mild hypertension and increasing blood flow.

“Chocolate is a very nourishing food and that’s part of the reason so many people enjoy it,” said Richard Turner. “The biggest drawback is the sugar content that can leave us with that sugar-low feeling. We believe in creating a chocolate with maximum nutritional impact – that’s the cocoa, the added ingredients like goji berries and the agave nectar.”

The team are launching three flavours: goji lucuma, hempseed banana and cashew coconut, with more being developed.