Product Review: Artisan Chocolate

 

I love my job. My first assignment blogging for US Wellness Meats was to review my favorite food (cheese!). My second is to review the “food of the gods” – chocolate. Actually, this name is given to the cacao tree (scientific name Theobroma), but, meh, semantics. In any case, I hope I do ‘the gods’ justice in reviewing their favorite food. Me personally? I like chocolate but admittedly live in the extremes with this food either chewing on raw cocoa nibs like a purist or resorting to a crazed late night covert operation of scraping out the old Halloween candy from the back of the freezer. Let’s just say, I could use some knowledge and inspiration on this topic to help me exist in the healthy moderate zone. As a nutrition enthusiast, I am eager to share what I learn.

Product Review: Artisan Chocolate

By, Kate Brown

Let’s begin with my standard PSA. Sourcing matters. Always. With everything. You know that. I know that. Per usual, our homegrown folk over at USWM have done our digging for us and feature the best products available – Missouri made Askinosie brand artisan chocolate. At first glance, I’m already obsessed with this company and ready to lock myself in a closet to savor every morsel offered based on principle alone! (“There is no ‘we’ in chocolate!”) I’ll definitely start with Askinosie Peanut Butter Dark Chocolate Bar (I’m pregnant and would eat peanut butter from the sole of my shoe at this point), move to the Red Raspberry Dark Chocolate Bar (to get my fruit in), then finish with the 100% dark chocolate bar (to end my tasting binge on a less shameful note).

Founding Father of the brand, Shawn Askinosie, and CEO daughter, Lauren, just seem – cool. I want to know these fellow foodie Midwesterners someday. A dynamic and powerful duo with an interesting origin story, deeply held values and a committed work ethic to actualize them. In short, they appear to be the real deal and I’m completely inspired. Having created a food business myself as primary decision maker, I cannot stress enough the importance of integral, wise, passionate and principled leadership – true for any business or organization, but increasingly so in the food industry. After all, your sacred health is at stake and your body he ultimate judge of quality. The Mega Corp products laden with cheap and harmful ingredients are simply driven by nefarious means and not worthy of comparison. I do believe it’s the devotion and family held values of artisanal food makers that will eventually – I pray – provide the heart and backbone of a much needed cultural renaissance ahead. My first impression is that Shawn and Lauren Askinosie will be leading the pack, lifting up with them anyone with a shared vision and love of their craft. But I digress.

I’d say this mission is already working on me.

Listed below are a few of my favorite products and reasons why Askinosie brand deserves space in your budget as a household staple:

1 – Askinosie sources directly from farms they know and trust to offer the purest organically raised chocolate. They source single origin, direct trade cocoa beans from smallholder farmers in Ecuador, Tanzania, the Amazon and the Philippines. With just three ingredients in most of their products – cocoa beans, house-pressed cocoa butter and organic cane sugar – their highly acclaimed and awarded small batch chocolate products showcase the complexity of superfood cacao in the unique and unadulterated flavors of each origin’s beans. There is a reason cacao tastings and rituals are all the health rage on social media – remember – it’s the food of the gods and we modern human folk are just coming to remember and acknowledge it for its depth and nourishment.

2 – You probably already know the darker the chocolate, the more nutrient rich it is. Askinosie offers nutrition puritans a 100% dark chocolate bar with only 2 ingredients: Davao, Philippines Cocoa Beans + Cocoa Butter (made in their factory with Davao cocoa beans). It’s dark, yes, but smooth, robust, full-bodied, delicious and full of flavanols and antioxidants. And because it’s sugar-free, gluten-free, and dairy-free, it is keto and paleo diet friendly (and much more satisfactory than chewing on cacao nibs, I might add).

3 – Milk chocolate on the other hand has subsequently gotten the shaft in health seeking circles. Bragging rights belong to whoever eats their chocolate darker, but not anymore! My journey towards the healthy choc-moderate continues with Askinosie’s famous dairy-free chocolate bar made with coconut milk – made of 52% milk chocolate with cocoa beans sourced from Del Tambo, Ecuador, organic cane sugar, house made cocoa butter, organic coconut, sucanat cane sugar, Maldon sea salt, and organic vanilla bean. This bar is brilliant, tastes of caramelized sugar and creamy coconut sweetness, and packed with antioxidants, iron, and magnesium (likely the reason women crave it at certain parts of their cycle when these nutrient stores are depleted). I couldn’t be happier to swap my hidden freezer stash with this artisan chocolate, and my body will thank me.

Newly infatuated with chocolate I’ll close this article with some quotes I found during the course of my heart transformation that made me smile.

“Chocolate is the answer, who cares what the question is.” – Unknown

“Save the planet, it’s the only one with chocolate.” – Anonymous

Thanks to Askinosie I am officially out of the friend-zone with the food of the gods but as ‘they’ say…“Forget love, I’d rather fall in chocolate!” – Anonymous

Wow, we truly appreciate Kate’s unique, nutritionist-inspired review of our Askinosie Artisan Chocolates. For this and more fantastic articles, visit our US Wellness Meats Discover Blog today!