Struggling to stick to your 2015 resolution? Try Zazubean's 'nudie' 80% extra dark chocolate

Did you veer off your New Year-resolution diet this Valentine's Day long weekend? But you still haven't achieved your goals?  Well, its time to get back to that low-carb diet you were on by trying out some very dark chocolate!  This week I will be exploring the very darkest of the dark chocolate bars, which may be just the treat you need to stick to your healthy eating plan.

I'll start with Zazubean.  I recently got my hands on the British Columbia-based chocolate maker's 'nudie' chocolate bar. It has 80% cocoa solids and is made with cacao from Panama. But most interestingly, the 20% non-cocoa solids is coconut sugar, not cane sugar.

Many people are trying to reduce their cane sugar intake these days, including me.  Let's face it, it's all too easy to fall into the habit of eating cane sugar all day long. Instant oatmeal for breakfast (even the organic, gluten-free kind) contains cane sugar. Bread, waffles, peanut butter and jam also contain it. At mid-morning snack, a 'healthy' berry-on-the-bottom yogurt also has cane sugar. Then at lunch, a salad dressing, or anything with ketchup is another shot of sugar. That organic granola bar? Yes, it has sugar too. And BBQ sauce on your dinnertime steak? Yup. That's more cane sugar. 

So it's easy to see why reducing our sugar intake, and switching to alternate sweeteners might be a benefit to our health.  It's also easy to see why a popular chocolate maker like Zazubean would offer a product that uses coconut sugar.

So how did it taste?
When I saw Zazubean's bar, I was concerned that the chocolate would have a strong coconut taste, or simply be bitter and unpalatable.  That was not the case. Upon opening the package, I found that it surprisingly smelled like sweet chocolate. There was no hint of coconut sugar in the aroma and very little in the taste. The taste was also sweet for an 80%.

When trying it up against Belcolade's Uganda 80% (which I'll write more about later this week), Camino Panama 80% or even a bean-to-bar craft chocolate like Amma's 80% dark, it certainly seemed sweeter, and had less of a bitter cocoa flavour.  But I think this may be nicer for the average palate, and it can be a good chocolate for someone who is transitioning from a 70% chocolate to something darker.

To learn more about chocolate in the 80% range, see my previous article comparing several popular bars here: http://ultimatechocolateblog.blogspot.ca/2014/08/whats-your-favourite-85-chocolate-bar.html.

You can find Zazubean online at http://zazubean.com or on Twitter at: @Zazubean.