The organic food industry is booming as an increasing number of Americans — a good number of them not health food purists — seek better, more nutritious and less processed food and beverages. The growth in health food and healthier beverages can be seen across the boards in the U.S., in every region.
CostCo for a while offered delicious blueberry muffins with zucchini as a key ingredient. Mad-in-Mexico soft drinks with real sugar versus corn syrup are big business in some western states. Pepsi Cola now offers a pure sugar version. Once upon a time you had to go to a health food store to get a healthier pizza, but now there are califlower crust and other gluten free pizzas at many stores. That reflects a ggluten-free boom in America in recent years. The pea-protein based Beyond Meat is making big sales at supermarkets and Carl’s Jr. hamburger chains with their truly amazing, I-can’t-tell-its-not-beef plant-protein based hamburgers and also offers hot italian sausage and bratworst plant based substitutes. Tyson Foods is working on a chicken substitutions. The Impossible Burger, a more lab engineered hamburger substitute with soy as a key ingredient, was hugely popular when Burger King test marketed it in St. Louis and is now being rolled out nationally.
Even PetCo has jumped on the bandwagon: it has dropped some highly popular brands to reinvent itself as a chain that only sells pet foods (and even flea sprays) that have no artificial ingredients or colors. Friskies catfood now is putting out a gourmet version of their food with no artificial ingredients or colors (Friskee gourmet) which is selling well at a local PetCo here. And the list goes on.
Enter a company called Yes Life Foods in Santa Cruz, California that is now offering an utterly delicious and healthy new product: Yes Cacao.
Yes Cacao is a product whose time has come, After you try it, you almost drool thinking about having another one of the tiny square pieces of a bar (or the whole bar) with so many healthy ingredients inside. The company on its website notes that “Chocolate is a vasodilator, meaning its chemical compounds expand the blood vessels. Instead of using refined sugar, processed emulsifiers, and conventional preservatives (which all penetrate the body with less-than-healthy consequences), we think it’s a better idea to use chocolate as a delivery system for organic herbs, teas, flowers, and superfoods”
And also: “The repurposing of cacao has historically followed a pattern of adapting to cultural values. We live in transformational times, with palpable and tangible conscious evolution. Yes CaCao is here to help you easily adapt into a healthier lifestyle, feeding the mind, body, and spirit connection. Botanical Chocolate is food to help you find your “YES”. Our wish is to continue creating formulas that impress your tastebuds and leave you feeling holistically fantastic!”
What is cacao (if you’ve never tried it)? One online definition is “seeds from a small tropical American evergreen tree, from which cocoa, cocoa butter, and chocolate are made.” It’s stronger than dark chocolate. Yes cacao uses the organic raw kind and as the company explains “wild, harvested everyday chocolate.”. But with a bit of sugar and a whole bunch of other healthy ingredients.
In recent years most American pizzas offered by big corporations and chains have become cheese delivery systems. Yes Cacao’s bars are delivery systems for botanicals, adaptogens and superfoods. I virtually inhaled three of their 99% organic bars. Each had a different flavor and was soothing (and nearly addictive). The three I tried:
**Dirtywhich the bar says helps you “launch into your day”. This cacao contains shilajit, tulsi, reishi and maca.
**Gaba Baba: Which can help you “find your inner rhythm” with GABA, Kava, Blue Lotus, and Trumeric (I take several Tumeric pills a day).
**Karma Mellowl,which “masters your mind” with Tumeric, Bacopa and Lions Mane.
Each bar comes in a little envelope with wonderful artwork. Each bar features little squares with “YES” on them.
And YES it is. With its nirvana-like taste, texture of the bars, attractive packaging and its healthy ingredients, Yes Cacao is art for the taste-buds and eyes. Now I will add one more must-buy to my growing list of new products that I use regularly that are both enjoyable and smart for the body (and perhaps for the soul).
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.