Sunday, 31 July 2011

• Raw Vegan Product Review: Gnosis Chocolate

  
  I have to admit, I'm a huge chocolate lover. I find nothing more satisfying than the bittersweet, creamy goodness of well-crafted dark chocolate. However, when I went raw vegan I pretty much was out of options and thought I would have to give up chocolate forever. Missing my beloved chocolate dearly, I finally went and Googled "raw chocolate" and stumbled across Gnosis Chocolate's website.
  
  Founded by Vanessa Barg in an effort to provide an extremely healthy option to chocolate lovers, Gnosis Chocolate fills a number of voids that existed in the market prior. All of Gnosis Chocolate's products are certified raw, vegan, organic, and kosher and are free of dairy, refined sugar, gluten, soy, and cholesterol.
  
  Instead of milk/cream and sugar, Gnosis Chocolate is sweetened with low-glycemic agave nectar and the natural sweetness of the fruits, nuts, etc. used in the various products. Needless to say I was sold on giving this stuff a try, so I went to the online shop to peruse around and pick out a couple of things to try.
  
  When I first got to the shop, I have to admit, my jaw dropped at the prices I saw. Most bars are between $8 and $10 a piece, and that's for 6 blocks of chocolate (a 2 ounce bar). Quite frankly you can buy a 16 ounce Hershey bar for that price! I ordered 2 different bars anyway (one mint dark chocolate, and a pomegranate acai bar, each $9.25). After applying a coupon code I found online and coughing up $30 for international shipping (ouch!), I coughed up about $47 for 4 ounces of chocolate, while the whole time I was thinking "this stuff better be damn good if I'm going to pay this kind of money for chocolate!" Yes, I admit, I was desperate for some chocolate.
  
  At any rate, so my chocolate arrived well-packaged, wrapped in aluminum bubble wrap with an ice pack inside. As I opened the box and revealed the bars, I was a bit disappointed by what I saw. Instead of the paper wrapping over an aluminum foil wrapping that most quality chocolate comes in, these bars came in cheap plastic wrappings, as you can see here:
  
  
  
  So that was strike one against the chocolate, but I wasn't going to dismiss it based on the packaging alone, so I moved on to the most important part, the smell/taste test.
  
  I proceeded to unwrap the mint bar, which immediately released a strong aroma of peppermint and rich dark chocolate. I bit into the bar and let the chocolate settle and liquify in my mouth (I never chew chocolate, I suck on it to get the most out of it). The taste was pretty good: semi-sweet, a bit bitter, and rather minty. However, the texture was very chalky and gritty, and not at all smooth. This left me feeling rather disappointed.
  
  I then moved on to the pomegranate acai bar, which also has in it Brazil nuts and a few other berries. As far as the aroma, the fruits in the aroma are rather subdued, dominated by the chocolate aroma. The taste was sort of the opposite, however. Tart fruity and nutty taste was up front, supported by the chocolate taste in the background. There was still some of that same miserable texture that was in the mint bar, but it seemed to be tamed a bit by the fruit and nut pieces. I liked this one a bit better, but it still didn't do much for me.
  
  All in all, I really wasn't impressed at all by Gnosis Chocolate. Though a valiant effort to bring healthier options for chocolate lovers, it falls short of what quality chocolate is all about.
  
  Summary:
  
  Pros: Healthy ingredients, meets strict dietary requirements, decent taste and aroma
  
  Cons: Very expensive, awful texture, poor quality packaging
  
  Overall Rating: 3/5
  
  Recommended: No

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