Q&A: Can I Eat Chocolate?

by Neely
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Here’s a question I’m sure MANY of you have had. Anyone else have any thoughts on chocolate?

Screen-Shot-2012-08-19-at-9.46.38-PM2-300x208.pngHello,

My husband and I recently started eating a Paleo diet and we have already noticed many positive changes. We are hooked! In my past life, I was addicted to chocolate. While I do my best to stay away from it, every now and then I give in and cheat with a little dark chocolate. What are your feelings about this? Am I doing more harm than good? Should I cut out all chocolate entirely? What are ingredients I can look for to make my chocolate cheat as paleo as possible? Thanks for your thoughts. You website and blog have proven very informative over the last couple of months. Melina

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Hi Melina,

I like your name. I was just hanging out with a 3 year old and every imaginary person she came up with was named Melina :) Anyway, I love chocolate and I think if you don’t have a sensitivity to it, you should continue eating it in moderation if it makes you a happier person.

I am also, as you say, addicted to chocolate in a terrible way. I’ve had to cut it out of my diet completely, partly because when I get my hands on it I can not stop eating it. If you can seriously eat a little bit of it at a time, then by all means go for it! And congrats to you on your impressive self control :)

Here’s another blog post on it for a little more info. As for the ingredients, a lot of brands of chocolate will have soy lecithin in it, and this is one of those rare exceptions I advise people to make for soy. The soy lecithin is an emulsifier to keep the chocolate from separating. Chocolate will also contain sugar unless it’s very high in cocoa, in which case you wouldn’t want to eat it anyway because it would taste like you were eating coffee beans.

So go for clean chocolate with no weird colorings, preservatives, or other low quality ingredients in them. If you can, make it organic with a high percentage of cocoa – as high as you can without negating its yumminess. Stay away from milk chocolate, since milk isn’t Paleo and a lot of people have problems with it. Also, milk and white chocolate are usually higher in sugar than good dark chocolate.

I’m a proponent of not being super strict with yourself on this diet unless you have to for medical or eating disorder reasons. Being too harsh with your boundaries and “cheats” can breed resentment and feelings of deprivation, which then can lead to going back to your old diet in your “past life”. So carry on, and I’m happy to hear you’re having success on the diet!

Kindly,

Neely