Chocolate Super Foods

It's official: Chocolate is good for you, and nutritionists will back you up on it. Deemed a "superfood," chocolate has been shown to lower blood pressure and improve circulation and overall cardiovascular health. When nutrition-packed chocolate is combined with other superfoods, its powers are multiplied. Chocolate's healthful properties can be showcased to advantage in food products that highlight its versatility and richness.

Dark Chocolate By Itself

• Just a few squares of dark chocolate per day can be the way to get your superfood fix, but any more than 100 calories of it daily may be too much. Because chocolate is high in calories and fat, eating it can lead to weight gain. Make sure the chocolate is dark, not milk or white chocolate, which contain heart-boosting polyphenols but in smaller amounts.

Chocolate With Other Superfoods

• Superfoods are touted to pack a punch and offer nutritional density in a small serving. But when superfoods are combined, their health benefits work in tandem while offering contrasting tastes and textures. Chocolate is a natural pairing with other superfoods such as blueberries, cinnamon, oranges, tea and honey. One product containing dark chocolate and Manuka honey uses the honey from a relative of the tea tree, known by the Maori people to have antiseptic and phytochemical properties. The two superfoods marry the fruity chocolate with the mellower caramel flavors of the exotic honey.

Raw Chocolate Creme

• Raw chocolate is a staple of raw food diets and is said to be a more enzymatically alive product than cooked or roasted chocolate. When incorporated into a dessert parfait, raw chocolate can taste sinful and "superfood" is not the first thing to come to mind. A thick pudding-like cream can be made from raw cocoa powder, the meat and water of young coconut, raw vanilla bean powder, organic strawberries and sweeteners, such as stevia and lucuma powder. Lucuma is a vitamin-rich tropical fruit with a flavor similar to maple syrup.

Raw Chocolate Cake

• A raw cake may not sound appetizing, but when it is an unbaked, unrefined raw chocolate cake, you are getting a superfood disguised as junk food. A secret ingredient in the cake is reishi powder and tea, from the wild medicinal reishi mushroom. Reishi is said to have immunostimulating and anticancer effects. The buttery notes of the mushroom complement that of the chocolate in a cake base of walnuts, coconut, dates, figs and pulverized raw cacao beans and cacao butter. A frosting made of cashews, carob and coconut is infused with the reishi tea, which can be piped onto the cake.