This past weekend, I managed to survive a 3-day obstacle race involving crazy things like climbing over a bus, jumping over a fire pit, running up a hill with a sandbag, crawling under barbed wire and other such things.
I spent Sunday afternoon relaxing and making a mango dragon roll. It was phenomenal! It had banana and avocado inside, and sliced mango on the top, dragon style. I topped it with toasted coconut and drizzled with some dark chocolate melted and spiced with cayenne.
It was so fun to make that I posted a photo on Instagram, and it spurred a question from Collette about how much dark chocolate she should eat. I responded there, but it was such a good question that I wanted to share my thoughts here!
The mango dragon roll was for a project that I’m pretty pumped about and will share info when I can!
First of all, nothing wrong with eating dark chocolate! If you can find one that’s made with as few ingredients as possible (usually cocoa, cocoa butter and sugar) that’s fantastic.
Even though there’s refined sugar in most dark chocolate, which I usually try to avoid, in the big scheme of an overall healthy diet full of fresh produce – a little bit is totally fine. A healthy body can handle it.
What’s the point in being healthy if you can’t have fun and enjoy things, right?
One thing I try to do if I have a chocolate craving is see if a healthy chocolate treat would be satisfying. That way, I can have more volume of chocolatey goodness, plus use whole food ingredients rather than refined.
Here are some of my favorite healthy chocolate treats:
- Homemade chocolate (or caroblate)
- Banana pureed with cocoa powder for a pudding or dip (like fondue)
- Mix that pudding into porridge, like this Chocolate Quinoa Breakfast Pudding
- Chocolate Macaroons
- Date-Based Chocolate Krinkles
- Mineral-Rich Chocolate-Banana Cupcakes
- Hot Chocolate
- Healthy Chocolate Brownies
Sometimes, nothing cuts it like a piece of dark chocolate. So when it’s calling, I say go for it – savor and really enjoy it. Have enough to satisfy you, just don’t overdo it.
