Reasons to Savour Craft Chocolate

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Summary

• Savouring is good for your gut and health. There are two sides to this – 1) we’re drawn to the tastes and smells of foods our bodies require. Savouring is an excellent way of listening to your body to balance out its needs. 2) Savouring makes sure you don’t overeat as you wait for your brain to catch up to your stomach’s “I’m full, let’s stop” signals.
• Savouring is great news for the farmers. The immense flavour complexity of craft chocolate is thanks to high-quality cocoa beans for which farmers get more than fair compensation (up to 10 times commodity cocoa prices), leading to lives improved all around.
• Savouring even sharpens your brain. It improves the neuroplasticity of your brain, keeping it sharp and in shape.

We’ve forgotten how to savour

Some decades ago, Big Food discovered the trick to making human beings scoff large quantities of food in a way that was lucrative to them. As a result of being pushed down this path, we’ve forgotten how to savour.

We see food as fuel, enhanced by sugar, salt and fat – which we just scoff. But food is so much more than fuel – it is one of the principal delights of life meant to be savoured.

There are many reasons to savour craft chocolate, but we’ve compiled the top 3 most compelling ones for you in this post.

Read on to understand why you must eat what you are (aka the intriguing science of stoichiometry), why the Japanese eat until they’re 80% full, and why it might be worthwhile to train yourself to “smell” better.

Savouring is good for your gut and health

A decade ago, Richard Wrangham, a British anthropologist at Harvard, asserted that our love of the flavours of cooked food explains why we humans developed bigger brains, became human, and indeed that “cooking made civilisation possible“.

Historians such as Felipe Fernandez-Armesto and Michael Symons have also shown how cooking has worked as a social lubricant, organising people into communities and promoting cooperation through sharing.

But flavour has probably played an even bigger role in the canvas of human history.

Rob Dunn and Monica Sanchez (an evolutionary ecologist and medical anthropologist respectively) have argued that “the pursuit of delicious flavours has guided the course of human history“. To understand, let us turn to the hard-to-pronounce but fascinating science of stoichiometry.

We are what we eat, but we must also eat what we are

Dunn and Sanchez use stoichiometry to analyse human food preferences, and they suggest that what we enjoy tasting (sugary, salty, umami, etc.) reflects our basic biochemical composition.

Stoichiometry’s basic rule is that the nutrients present in the food and those in the consumer must ultimately balance. To put it another way, we are what we eat, but we must also eat what we are. And nature has all sorts of tricks to help this work out.

We’re drawn, by way of smell, to the things our bodies require – it’s why we like the smell of roasted meats (aka lots of protein). It’s why MSG (Monosodium glutamate) is used as a flavour enhancer in many foods.

What’s more, it might explain the mystery of why we possess sour (acid) taste receptors. Recent research shows that these receptors may have helped us distinguish ‘good’ fermentations (i.e., dominated by yeasts and lactic acid bacteria that improve the caloric value, nutrient content and digestibility of food) from ‘bad’ (rotten food) – eventually leading us towards intentional control of the process aka fermentation.

Indeed, the preparation of sour fermented drinks may have predated agriculture.

Net-net: the more you move away from ultra-processed chocolate confectionery which is made for scoffing, the better your gut microbiome will get. Once you stop scoffing and start savouring craft chocolate, the full extent of your flavour detecting skills can be unleashed.

From the expansive good effects of theobromine (which you can explore to your heart’s content in the health section of chocopedia) to your overall sense of satiety, savouring craft chocolate does wonders for your gut.

Sidebar: why do we feel full?

At its most basic, we feel full because our stomachs send messages to our brain saying ‘enough’. When our stomach absorbs nutrients, it releases hormones to constrict our intestines. There is generally a lag between the hormone release and our brains receiving the message. Thanks to this lag, we often overconsume and feel very full.

The Japanese have a great expression “Hara hachi bu”, eat until you feel your stomach (hara) is 80% (hachi bu) full. Then, wait for your brain to catch up to where your stomach is at. This way, you will feel full, but not stuffed.

Savouring is good for the farmers

When you savour craft chocolate, the benefits extend to everyone in the craft chocolate value chain, most of all cocoa farmers who are severely exploited by Big Chocolate.

Let’s break this down: craft chocolate has so much more flavour complexity, length and depth compared to mass-produced chocolate, which relies on additives, fortifiers and most of all, sugar.

A significant part of this flavour complexity in craft chocolate is down to the quality of the cocoa beans. Craft chocolate makers know that they have to pay the farmers more for the extra work involved in planting, growing, harvesting, fermenting, drying and transporting these speciality beans.

The premium craft chocolate makers pay for their beans is anywhere from two to over ten times the commodity cocoa prices, and much higher than even the highest fair-trade premiums. This premium really does percolate to all the people involved in the craft chocolate value chain.

When you savour craft chocolate (and craft chocolate is made for savouring), you make a direct contribution to empowering cocoa farmers.

Savouring is good for your brain

At first, trying to identify and articulate flavours can be frustrating; the words are literally on the “tip of the tongue”.

But it doesn’t take long to learn. Ann Sophie Barwich, neuroscience guru and author of Smellosophy, suggests that 4-6 weeks of daily sniffing of a few aromas will put you on a solid footing.

Barwich also notes that smell training “offers a great way to increase your brain’s plasticity” and “results in significant structural changes in some regions of the brain”. Savouring keeps the brain sharp and in shape (technically, this is called neuroplasticity).

Studies on the brains of London cabbies have shown how parts of their brain morph and grow as they learn the streets of London. But savouring craft chocolate is (probably) easier for most of us!

Sharpen your brains by joining us in a chocolate tasting and experience the wonderful world of craft chocolate.