Thought you`d be interested...

The Raw Chocolate Revolution
December 2006, by Shazzie
"What do you have for breakfast?" people often ask me. "Chocolate!" I reply. And I give the same answer for many of my meals and snacks. To those who haven't yet joined The Raw Chocolate Revolution, this reply may seem unhealthy. They may think I'm obese or addicted to sugar. Yet, I'm healthy in the extreme. I'm a normal weight, and I haven't eaten sugar in over seven years. This is because the chocolate I eat is raw, vegan, sugar-free, loaded with superfoods (chocolate being the main one!), and fully life-giving.

Further, I can be all psychic on you and tell you that in 2007 all the major supermarkets, whole food shops and food manufacturers are set to introduce raw chocolate products to the unsuspecting public. You are lucky enough to hear it first, and can join the revolution now. Last year, we predicted the same with the superfood known as goji berries, which are now available in the big supermarkets. How do we know this? Because the trends for health foods are now set by people who walk their talk, by people who look like you want to look, and by people who live like you want to live. Trends are now set by people like myself, and people like you. By reading this, you've just become a revolutionary. Congratulations on changing your life.

First rule of The Raw Chocolate Revolution: you do talk about The Raw Chocolate Revolution. You are a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are not the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are not all part of the same compost pile.
True health seekers have revolted. We got sick of cabbage and carrot salads and were guided and coaxed by the great cacao gods to create The Raw Chocolate Revolution. This in turn created The Superbeing Revolution which has caused us to evolve before our very own eyes. Eating real ancient nutrient-packed health food is about honouring exactly what our bodies need to function correctly so we can do the jobs on this planet that really need doing. There has never been a more crucial time to be part of a revolution, and The Chocolate Revolution is the most fun and apt one around.

Chocolate revolutionaries have superfood nutrition at every meal, with in every snack, with every cup of herbal tea. Why? To reverse the lies and damage of the western lifestyle!
Since before we were born, most of us have been fed substandard foods, we've been brought up on fear, we've been programmed by the telly. Many of us who have an interest in higher vibrational living have eschewed meat and other animal products for a long time. Some of us have dabbled in raw foods, juices, fasting, yoga and meditation. Now, we've been shown something so potent, so powerful, so life-changing, that we want to share it with everyone! And here's the best part: chocolate is part of everyone already! It may be disguised as that unhealthy milky hydrogenated oil sugary substance, but there is chocolate in there, too. Becoming a Raw Chocolate Revolutionary is so easy because everyone already gets chocolate! Everyone understands it! The fact that raw chocolate has seven times the antioxidant power as cooked chocolate is irrelevant to most people, they just like the taste!

Over the past three years, since we started The Raw Chocolate Revolution, we've discovered that once people taste raw chocolate, their lives are changed for ever. Raw chocolate alters your consciousness immediately. It opens up channels within you and allows energy and information in at a lightning speed. It enables you to live fully in your flow. It causes massive changes in all parts of your life. It forces you to live your highest truth and only your highest truth. It helps you heal the planet as well as your body. Above all, raw chocolate tastes amazing!

In May 2004, David Wolfe and myself were in Maui. Our friends, The Coconut Brothers, were peeling raw cacao beans (the bean of the chocolate tree that all chocolate is made from). We were adding this to smoothies. One of The Coconut Brothers asked us: "Have you just eaten one?" We hadn't. We did. Our lives changed in that moment. Everything that has happened since has been pure magic. The cacao gods had chosen us as messengers to bring real chocolate into the consciousness of the western world! What an honour -- we were humbled.

Shortly after, we found some more magic beans in a UK shop owned by our good friend Sky and we went to Amsterdam. For three days we wandered around Amsterdam eating only cacao beans, AFA algae and maca. We declared Amsterdam the capital of raw chocolate, and named a strange old market building with many red doors as the church of our non-denominational chocolate religion. July 14th was forever to be Chocolate Day (as was every other day)! David became The Chocolate Pope and I became the Chocolate Nun (but that's another story). We told the secrets of raw chocolate to everyone who would listen. We introduced people to raw chocolate superfood smoothies, truffles, bars, teas, puddings, chilis, mousses and cakes.

In 2005 we wrote a book called Naked Chocolate, which exposed key information about the chocolate bean in its uncooked form. Since then, raw chocolate has been one of the world's fastest growing health foods. It is now set to hit the big time, baby! Raw chocolate tastes divine, I've invented over 100 recipes for it, many of which are in Naked Chocolate. As it isn't mixed with sugar or dairy, I feel it's a perfect food. Chocolate is so much higher in antioxidants than any other food on the planet, and it makes you feel blissed out, too. We recently secured a limitless supply of raw organically certified chocolate powder, butter and nibs so I'm looking at the world through chocolate tinted glasses. I love what I see!

Progressive scientists and chemical genius folk really get what we're doing, too: "Naked Chocolate is fantastic! I love it very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you a million times." says Dr Patrick Flanagan. He's an inventor and was voted one of America's top 10 scientists at the young age of 17.

Since the advent of Naked Chocolate, The Raw Chocolate Revolution has caused raw chocolate businesses and products to spring up everywhere. I've created six Shazzie's Naked Chocolate bars, all loaded with superfoods, all raw and all vegan. My friend Kate Wood has a shop in Brighton called Raw Magic, which supplies raw fresh chocolate. There are several other companies selling their own versions of raw chocolates in the UK, Europe and the USA. My company has recently secured a deal with one of the UK's leading health food brands to raw chocolate for their new bar which is launching soon. Traditional organic cooked chocolatiers are looking to include raw chocolate in their ranges. There are even raw chocolate training courses. Raw chocolate is the revolution to end all revolutions: participants are paid back a million times for loving chocolate in its natural state by becoming blissed out, loved up superbeings who make huge and immediate shifts in our planet's consciousness and beyond. The point has been tipped, Burger Pawn.

So as I stand here before you today, fellow revolutionaries, I say to you: Join The Raw Chocolate Revolution today by eating some raw chocolate and giving some to a loved one. Create a beautiful chocolate-filled life. Let raw chocolate open your heart and then do only what your heart asks of you.

Go in chocolate peace: Love, evolve, revolve. Then love some more. You are love.
Much love



Chocolate Revolutionary


Suggested reading: Naked Chocolate, by David Wolfe and Shazzie

I wonder if I should bother commenting on an "article" that seems like edited ad copy. However, I will point out a few things.

Raw cacao beans are fermented. In the process, the heat can reach 50 degreees Centigrade or 127 degrees F, above the level where food is considered raw. The fermentation process also kills the cacao seed, so even if still legally raw, "raw cacao" is a DEAD food.

The fermentation process is done outdoors, with only limited controls. Raw cacao can be contaminated with dead insects, insect parts, rat feces, etc. Raw cacao also can contain E coli and other dangerous bacteria. Raw cacao, expecially the hulls, have great affinity for lead and cacao can contain lead and cadmium, among other heavy metals. Cacao is grown in many third world countries where the gasoline still contains lead.

The "raw chocolate revolution" is a class action food liability lawsuit waiting to happen. When it does, it will bankrupt the raw chocolate peddlers - including David Wolfe and company.

I invite the pro-raw-chocolate promoters to reply.

Paul Nison isn't that fond of chocolate either..

longtimeraw Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Raw cacao beans are fermented. In the process, the
> heat can reach 50 degreees Centigrade or 127
> degrees F, above the level where food is
> considered raw. The fermentation process also
> kills the cacao seed, so even if still legally
> raw, "raw cacao" is a DEAD food.

Right on longtimeraw! Great points that not many seem to realize.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/11/2006 07:59PM by learningtofly.

longtimeraw Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The fermentation process is done outdoors, with
> only limited controls. Raw cacao can be
> contaminated with dead insects, insect parts, rat
> feces, etc. Raw cacao also can contain E coli and
> other dangerous bacteria. Raw cacao, expecially
> the hulls, have great affinity for lead and cacao
> can contain lead and cadmium, among other heavy
> metals. Cacao is grown in many third world
> countries where the gasoline still contains lead.

Ha! So where are all the raw fooders with E coli??? I eat raw cacao most days, I have friends who eat much more than me!

(Who beleives the "germ theory of disease" anyway!)

Rob who eats raw Chocolate Pudding for Breakfast

--
Rob Hull - Funky Raw
My blog: [www.rawrob.com]

>Ha! So where are all the raw fooders with E coli??? I eat raw cacao most days, I have friends who eat much more than me!

Raw cacao is a specialty food, consumed by a few thousand people at most.

Look at raw spinach & green onions, 2 raw plant foods recently contaminated by E Coli. It's not very common, but IT CAN HAPPEN.

longtimeraw Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Look at raw spinach & green onions, 2 raw plant
> foods recently contaminated by E Coli. It's not
> very common, but IT CAN HAPPEN.

So why single out cacao? If spinach and green onions can have it, then cacao is not special in this regard.

Rob

--
Rob Hull - Funky Raw
My blog: [www.rawrob.com]

Raw people with high dietary fiber intakes (from food, not supplements) should have a healthy immune system function and a healthy population of friendly intestinal bacterial, E. coli should not be a deadly problem. Most of the people who get sick and die are either young children, the elderly, or the people who eat garbage. Just my two cents, I never worry about such things.

>Most of the people who get sick and die are either young children, the elderly, or the people who eat garbage. Just my two cents, I never worry about such things.

Children, the elderly, the weak, sick, and infirm, and yes, even those who eat "garbage" (whether real or rhetorical) are all people, and they are all important. Whether they live or die is indeed worth "worrying about".

Thanks however for demonstrating a negative, ego-centric, raw-centric view of the world.

I love raw chocolate! I am making some amazing raw chocolate fudge right now.

I have had nothing but great experiences with raw cacao. You should have seen the raw cacao cake that my friend Jeff Rogers made for the Raw Spirit Retreat, it was huge.

As much as I have empotional attachments with chocolate, my body tells me it's no good. Of course, there are intelectual arguments against it as well ([www.rawgosia.com] for example). Naturally, it does not bother me what everyone else eats.

Gosia


RawGosia channel
RawGosia streams

Gosia..Just looked at your family photos on your site..your children are adorable!!

Oh and I`m just reading all the information on your website, tis very inspiring. This is the kind of stuff that makes me want to eat raw food!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/12/2006 01:15AM by apple.

Thanks, apple (my son's favourite food!).

Gosia


RawGosia channel
RawGosia streams

rawgosia Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As much as I have empotional attachments with
> chocolate, my body tells me it's no good. Of
> course, there are intelectual arguments against it
> as well
> (http://www.rawgosia.com/articles/michelle.html
> for example). Naturally, it does not bother me
> what everyone else eats.
>
> Gosia

That "intellectual" argument simply talks about caffine and theobromine over and over and over and over again. It only talks about their negative points (and highly embellishes those) while ignoring the beneficial properties of those natural compounds altogether.

It also states that the cacao seeds must be "dried and fermented" to be edible. AFAIK, that is false (might want to delete that claim or back it up).

Lots of plants contain compounds that can be damaging in large quantities, dismissing a food entirely because of this seems silly.

I also question you claim that you don't care what other people eat, that fact that you host such an article and post in this thread seems to suggest otherwise.

Narz, I am not in mood for an argument. Maybe some other time. Live and let live!

Cheers,
Gosia

PS Feel free to eat all the chocolate that you want. Honestly, this doesn't bother me. Ha ha ha!!!


RawGosia channel
RawGosia streams



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/13/2006 04:41AM by rawgosia.

Hey, nothing personal Gosia. I wish you all the best you know, I was just commenting on the article and your intention in posting in this thread.

But since I know you believe chocolate to be poison, I'm hurt that you want me to eat alot of it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/13/2006 07:17AM by Narz.

I like raw chocolate! Just in little amounts, though.

I'm a diehard chocolate connossieur but raw chocolate made me feel weird - good at first (though not for very long), then a definite drug come-down. I went back to cooked chocolate, then tried Acai, which turned out to be a much better high, and which has no come-down so I know it's healthy.

I can't understand all this hype about raw chocolate. Goji berries too - yuck.

I'll try anything once, and that's my cacao review (I went through 2 big bags of it). Stuff's weird - bad weird.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/13/2006 09:04PM by sunshine79.

Narz, I have moved away from the position of wanting to change others long long time ago. I am happy to share information and at the same time I am completely happy for everyone to be where they are. Being bothered by other people's choice is not my motivation.

Cheers,
Gosia.


RawGosia channel
RawGosia streams



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/13/2006 10:40PM by rawgosia.

Cacao: Not As Good As Youve Been Lead To Believe.

by Paul Nison

The latest and greatest so-called super food being promoted in the raw food world is raw chocolate, also known as cacao. I myself was excited when I first heard about it. But after trying it, I didn't feel that great. I asked others how they felt after consuming cacao and there were no complaints. That was then. After a few months, I started to get more and more complaints from people who were taking cacao. It didn't surprise me because chocolate in general is not good for us. Other than the enzyme issue, why would raw cacao be so healthy for us?

That is when I decided to do research and I found some scary facts. Whats even scarier is that people are so addicted to it, that even after learning of the high possibility of harmful effects, they keep consuming it. What concerns me the most is the amount people are eating. If someone took a pinch, lets say once a week, then maybe they wouldn't have to worry. When I see people being lead to believe that there are many health benefits to consuming tablespoons every day; that is just crazy!
If you are eating a raw food diet because you want to find a natural toxin that will make you feel high, then you have found a good product. Beware, because there are many downsides to it. If you are eating a raw diet for health benefits, consuming chocolate in any form should be off your list and out of your mind.

In one of the best overall raw guides ever written Diet by Design: Fruits, Nuts and Natural Foods (available at www.rawlife.com) it says the following about cacao:

Chocolate and cacao are outright health hazards due to the chemicals, contaminants, and additives they contain. The chemicals within chocolate are called methylxanthines. They can be further classified as theobromine, caffeine, and theophylline, all of which have deleterious effects on the body. Theobromine is known to cause a host of symptoms including abnormal glandular growth, nervousness, depression, anxiety, insomnia, gastrointestinal problems, and itching. Caffeine is highly suspected of being a carcinogen, and is directly linked to heart and circulatory problems, glandular difficulties, nervous disorders, osteoporosis, birthing abnormalities, and so forth. Theophylline causes stomach problems, nausea, vomiting, and nervous disorders.

The processing of cacao beans into powder and chocolate is an unsanitary, risky procedure to say the least. To be blunt-chocolate and cacao are laced with animal feces and hair, insects, and molds. The carcinogenic mold called aflatoxin has been found in large quantities on cacao beans.

Allowable limits have been set by the FDA regarding rodent feces and insect parts in chocolate and cocoa! As quoted from Poison With a Capital C, every time you eat a chocolate bar, it may contain a rodent hair and 16 insect parts and still carry the blessing of the FDA., and For chocolate powder or cakes there must not be more than 75 insect fragments in three tablespoons of powder., and Four percent of cacao beans may be infested by insects. Animal excreta (such as visible rat droppings) must not exceed 10 milligrams per pound.

Now, after learning this information, people will still continue to indulge, making excuses to keep eating it. Please note I have no reason to write this information, other than to make you aware of the truth. In fact, I would make a lot of money if I sold raw chocolate and products that contain it. But I just cant do that, knowing the truth.

I give lectures all over the world, mostly in the United Stated. I have already giving over 100 lectures this year alone. Just about every lecture I give, I have someone come up to me telling me that they experienced one or more of the symptoms above after consuming cacao. Now if you are eating cacao and have not had symptoms, that doesnt mean its okay for you. Its just a matter of time, so why not stop now.

It is my passion and my goal to get information about health to as many people as possible. What you do with that information is your own personal choice.

having never eaten a raw cacao bean, i probably should not comment... but my feeling is that cacao is better used as an herb than a food, meaning it should be used in moderation and not for prolonged periods of time.