My Morning Cocoa Coffee Concoction

I’m often asked to share the recipe for my healthy morning cocoa coffee concoction, so here it is. The health benefits of raw cocoa and the lessons in the story behind the recipe is what makes the concoction worth drinking, not the taste of the thing, but there is comfort in the tasting. For your convenience, recipe is posted first, story follows. 
Note: Health Warning Alert and Action Required.

My favorite mug holds about eleven ounces and I use a tea spoon versus a measuring teaspoon. My recipe is as informal, resolute, and flexible as I am, so please make your own version. One word of advice: Best to limit to 1 or 2 cups a day.

Ingredients

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1 pinch of unrefined sea or kosher salt.

Brands I use or like

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Le Sauniere de Camargue Fleur de Sel is an expensive favorite. Kosher is an affordable favorite. If you suffer hyperkalemia, don't use unrefined sea salt.

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¼ tea spoon of instant coffee or 1 tablespoon of cold-brewed coffee.

Mount Hagen Organíc-Café freeze dried instant coffee. This stuff is so good, it passes the taste test of coffee snobs, even if they won't admit it. Cold-brewed coffee is lower in acidity and easy to make. I preferred the cold-brewed when I was still consuming coffee! If you suffer candida or immune deficiencies, avoid coffee.

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½-1 tea spoon of virgin coconut oil.

Any brand should work. This is a healthy dairy fat (cream) substitution; fat is an emulsifier, which is needed to help distribute the cocoa, otherwise the powder tends to drop to the bottom. If you suffer high cholesterol, coconut oil helps bring it down - and will stun your non-fat-preaching doctor.

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1 rounded tea spoon of unsweetened cocoa powder.

I'm in love with Guittard Cocoa Rouge, but any pure baking cocoa powder will suffice. If you brand hop, that palate will get sophisticated in time. If caffeine or acidity is an issue for you, be sure to get Dutch processed or alkalized cocoa. If you suffer depression or age-related cognitive decline, cocoa is your medicine.

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1/4 tea spoon of raw, unfiltered honey or a small dollop of blackstrap, unsulphered molasses.

 For some reason I still don't understand, I prefer organic creamed honey. Maybe because it's less messy. I'm also grateful to official research which shows that, unlike most sugars, honey does not feed mold or fungi conditions. Blackstrap molasses is an excellent alternative if you have undiagnosed nutritional imbalances, for example, or a stomach that gets easily upset. Blackstrap is lower in sugar and higher in nutrients like magnesium, iron, and potassium. Note: You can skip the sea salt if using blackstrap molasses.

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Fill cup with boiling hot water, and stir well. Keep that stir stick around as you’ll need to stir before sipping, but not as often as you would if you didn’t add any emulsifier.

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My convoluted story

Coffee isn’t good for me, not the least because of what the caffeine can and will do to my nervous system. I quit coffee about 19 years ago when I discovered that I had become allergic and addicted. It took me 30 days to get past the withdrawal symptoms of chronic tiredness. That 30 days was so memorable, it has kept me from ever getting addicted again. But coffee smells wonderful and has some serious beneficial effects on both the brain and pancreas, two organs of mine that suffer, so I wanted to find a way to put coffee back into my life in a safe way. Low dose is the way to go. But, if you suffer candida or any fungal or blood sugar issues please avoid or low-dose caffeination, because here's the bad news:

THE CAFFEINE PROBLEM
* Caffeine lowers immunity, reducing body’s ability to fight fungi.
* Caffeine stimulates already exhausted adrenals which release cortisol which disturbs brain chemistry (hypothalamus and pituitary), creating addiction and disruption of hormone regulation which reduces immune system’s ability to fight fungi.
* Caffeine destabilizes blood sugar levels.

Sugar and dairy are health-depleting for me, but Cocoa? World’s best antidepressant! 
I found a compromise with chocolate by buying dark, organic, which is lower in sugar and dairy, and limiting myself to one ounce, once a week. On Sundays, I would have my four little squares of chocolate with a cup of tea and the NY Times. I soon realized that Sundays were the only day of the week in which I was genuinely happy. I narrowed the cause down to the chocolate, which I then narrowed down to the cocoa in the chocolate. How to get the great benefits of cocoa without the disastrous effects of sugar and dairy? Duh. Consume only the cocoa. This is what prompted the morning drink, but in reality, cocoa powder can be tossed onto and into nearly anything. There’s a reason blessed Mexican cooks put it in their chicken sauce. If it can go there, it can go anywhere, so just play with it.

Personal Motivations
I wanted to drink something other than boring water in the morning. Don’t get me wrong: That morning glass of water is vital to breaking the fast in the best way, so it’s still on the menu, but right or wrong, I missed being like the rest of the world that ritualized morning with a cuppa joe.

I also had a strong, bittersweet memory of my biological father during the few short years I had him with me: He rose very early in the morning for factory work, made his cup of coffee with cream and sugar, and left it on the table as he turned his back pretending not to notice tiny me sneaking in and drinking as much of his coffee as I could get away with before he turned around and caught me; he never got angry, but only smiled and put me on his lap after making more coffee for himself. We two had a special and rare love, so love is another ingredient in my concoction. Whatever you consume: Make it with the gratitude that generates the healing vibes of true love.

Two months after my first experiments with earlier versions of this recipe, I noticed that my chronic depression was no longer there. I also noticed that I no longer craved chocolate. I surmise that my brain needed the neurotransmitter-balancing chemicals (esp. flavanols) that the cocoa bean contains, and once satisfied, so was the chocolate craving satisfied. I’ve encouraged others to experiment with this, with similar results.

I also suffered through many menopausal years of brain fog. For a while, I stopped my morning cocoa coffee drink, falsely thinking that it might be doing more harm than good. My brain fog got worse. Much worse. Online research revealed that I am not the only person who has discovered the magic of cocoa-coffee-coconut for better brain health. So, I'm back on my morning cuppa alongside a daily brain exercise called reading, thinking, and learning.

Coffee in small dosage to stimulate without damage, cocoa in moderate dosage because it is wicked healthy and doesn’t seem to do any harm as long as not contaminated during processing (see warning, below), unrefined sea salts for mineral balance - or just kosher salt - which helps cellular communication, virgin coconut oil for many health reasons, including reduction of cholesterol and antifungal properties, and pancreas-safe, antifungal raw honey on the days I need it, not to make it sweet, but for balance. Molasses is the recent add-on, and that's because I inadvertently discovered it was taking care of some mineral imbalances I didn't know I had.

Create your concoction.

 

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Cocoa comes with warnings, too, sadly - PLEASE READ
December, 2022, Consumer Reports revealed a heavy metal contamination problem with many chocolate brands. Within is a petition I recommend everyone sign.
The benefits of cocoa are too important to allow industry to be lapse in testing for and eliminating heavy metals from their products. For those of you who have been daily users for many years, like myself, we must do our due diligence, which may or may not include looking into ways to remove heavy metals through natural chelation. The latest research on chelation from the National Institute of Health. 
Personally, I've been about as safe as I can be, because my taste buds seem to pick up on things like waters and foods that are over-mineralized, so I've naturally avoided them, including certain chocolate brands. But the issue has me rethinking maintenance dosage. Weekly, instead of daily, might be a potential compromise. Another option which might be wiser is paying attention to my body and employing this concoction as medicine vs. as a daily ritual.

Originally posted 11/1/2014.