"Chocolate contains Sugar?!"

Being a part of the confectionary space for 5 years, we have participated in several farmers markets, exhibitions & educational events. Early on, what came of as a surprise to me is people asking us, "Your chocolate contains sugar?...I'm off sugar". We would respond by saying "ALL chocolates contain sugar".

Many would be shocked, some would say "Chocolate contains Sugar?!". Several would pause and agree and some would outright say we are lying. 

But just think this through for a minute. Cacao beans are bitter... Extremely bitter. While there are people who enjoy a 100% dark chocolate, most people prefer a chocolate that is dark, somewhere between 60%-85%.

So what do you think is added to chocolate to balance out the bitterness? It's a sweetener. Sugar, coconut sugar, palm sugar, beet sugar, stevia, xylitol etc.

As a consumer, one should be aware of the ingredients that go into your food. If you flip the package over, ingredients, along with the nutritional information is mentioned. Its mandatory. Ingredients are listed in descending order of composition. 

For example, if a chocolate is dark at 70% it will be listed as             

Ingredients: Cocoa beans, sugar

However, if a chocolate is semi-sweet or sweet it will be listed as 

Ingredients: Sugar, cocoa beans

So the next time you pick up a bar of chocolate, flip over the package and pay close attention to the ingredients. 

General guidelines

1) Fewer ingredients the better

2) Cocoa should be the first mentioned ingredient

3) If you read ingredients that you have no idea what they are, chances are they are not good for your body to digest.

At Pascati, we use only organic certified ingredients. We do not make our chocolate using emulsifiers or stabilisers or artificial sugars.