LIVING
Fair enough
Spending your pennies on Fairtrade
chocolate means you can spread
the love by buying better. This is an
independent guarantee certified by the
Fairtrade Foundation that the ingredients
are sourced under internationally
agreed fair trade terms and conditions.
These include a guaranteed, secure minimum price, an extra
social premium payment for the farmers to invest in their own
community programmes, long term trading contracts, decent
health and safety conditions which are aimed at empowering
farmers to make their own improvements to living standards
and prospects for the future. If Fairtrade products can capture
even a small proportion of the current UK market worth
approximately £3.98 billion a year (Mintel, 2012), producers
in developing countries gain real benefits. All Divine products
carry the Fairtrade Mark.
Fundamentally, chocolate isn’t as
bad for you as once believed.
bacteria in the gut to help improve immunity of flavenoids include cranberries, apples, cocoa butter, which while still being a
and overall health and wellbeing, and that’s peanuts, onions, tea and red wine. fat, appears to have a neutral effect on
on top of just thinking ‘way-hay, chocolate!’ But not all forms of chocolate contain cholesterol, neither raising nor lowering it.
and the comfort rush that comes with high levels of flavanols. The more When choosing your chocolate,
eating it. chocolate is processed (through things watch out for extra ingredients that can
like fermentation, alkalizing, roasting, add fat and calories, but you need not
Healthy eating? etc.), the more flavanols are lost. So feel guilty if you enjoy a small piece of
The cocoa bean is rich in a class of plant most commercial chocolates are highly dark chocolate once in a while.
nutrients called flavonoids, which are processed. As per usual, your best bet is to read
antioxidants that help protect plants from Your best choices are likely to be dark the labels, and look for purer cocoa bars
environmental toxins and help repair chocolate over milk chocolate (especially without the nasty added extras already
damage. If we eat foods rich in flavonoids, milk chocolate that is loaded with other mentioned. While your tastes might not
we also benefit in the same way. fats and sugars) and cocoa powder that initially be towards darker chocolates,
In addition to having antioxidant qualities, has not undergone Dutch processing over time you will appreciate them,
flavanols have other potential influences on (cocoa that is treated with an alkali to especially when you can eat them with
vascular health, such as lowering blood neutralize its natural acidity). not only a sense of relief that it is not
pressure, improving blood flow to the brain Fundamentally, chocolate isn’t as bad ‘forbidden fruit’, but that your choc-treat
and heart, and making blood platelets less for you as once believed. is both low carb and low GI, so it won’t
sticky and able to clot. Other great sources The fat in chocolate comes from make your blood glucose levels spike.