Day 147 -- Does Vegan Chocolate Exist?

For a vegan, the most important question people ask is, "Where do you get your protein?"  The second most important question is "Can you still eat chocolate?"  And to be honest, the first question is easy to answer and the second question caused me to do a little research.  Since I'm not a big fan of chocolate, I really didn't have any reason to find vegan chocolate.  But maybe it's time.

To begin, I needed to know the basic ingredients in chocolate.  I visited The Story Of Chocolate website to find out.  Chocolate is made of chocolate liquor  (cocoa beans with their shells removed that have been fermented, roasted and ground until they liquefy), cocoa butter (present in chocolate liquor, extra cocoa butter enhances flavor and mouthfeel), sugar, lecithin (an emulsifier usually made from soy) and vanila or other flavoring.  So far, so good.  And what about that word "mouthfeel'?  Definitely a crucial element of good chocolate.

There are three types of chocolate:  dark chocolate, milk chocolate and white chocolate.  Both milk and white chocolate contain milk, so we can knock them off the list, but dark chocolate doesn't always contain milk products.   Unsweetened chocolate, or baking chocolate, is 100 percent chocolate liquor and is typically very bitter and astringent.  No milk, but not very tasty.  Add sugar and it become semi-sweet chocolate.  The problem comes when the chocolate maker adds milk fat to dark chocolate to soften the texture and not for a milk flavor.

Trader Joe's and Whole Foods both make chocolate chips that have no milk products.  Newman's Own also makes chocolate bars (Sweet Dark Espresso and Sweet Dark Orange flavors). Lindt's Excellence 70% bar is also vegan.   Luckily, VegNews has an entire list of vegan chocolate to make shopping easier.

I tried the Lindt Excellence Roasted Almond which was available at WalMart and of course, it was chocolate.  Vegan chocolate is really the same as regular chocolate, you just have to look for dark chocolate with no dairy.  But it's nice to know that chocolate is on the list.