Chocolate for Breakfast? Maybe We’ve Been Asking the Wrong Question

Chocolate for breakfast?  A chunk alongside your coffee and eggs?  In what world would that make sense?

Well… maybe one where we stop assuming that chocolate itself is the problem.  Because cacao isn’t inherently a bowl of refined sugar. Somewhere along the way, chocolate became almost inseparable from the sugar we add to it — and with that came its permanent assignment to the dessert only category.

But what happens when you change what sweetens it?  Enter the humble date.  Yes. The fruit.  No wizardry. No chemical tricks. No ingredient with seventeen syllables that requires a Google search.

Dates are naturally sweet, which is precisely why we use them. But unlike refined sugar, dates aren’t just sugar.  Whole dates naturally contain dietary fiber, minerals including potassium and magnesium, and a variety of plant compounds including phenolics and carotenoids. Research examining the nutritional composition of dates has consistently identified them as a source of fiber, minerals and antioxidant compounds.[1][2]

That distinction matters to us.  Not because we’re trying to convince you that chocolate is broccoli.  (It isn’t. And frankly, broccoli has enough responsibilities.)  It matters because when we started The Simple Date, the question wasn’t:  "How do we make chocolate taste healthy?"  It was:  "Why does delicious chocolate have to rely on refined sugar in the first place?"

And cacao wasn’t exactly starting from zero.  Cacao itself is a fascinating food.  It’s naturally rich in plant compounds called polyphenols, particularly flavanols. Cocoa and cocoa flavanols have been studied extensively, including in human clinical research, although the amount present can vary considerably depending on the cacao and how it is processed.[3][4]

So we start with cacao.  Then, instead of sweetening it with refined sugar, we use dates.  That’s it.  A familiar fruit doing the job sugar normally does, while bringing along some of the nutrients naturally found in the fruit.

“Ummm…but does it taste healthy?” 🙄  We knew you were going to ask.  Because we’ve all tried at least one supposedly better-for-you version of something that tasted like the punishment for wanting dessert.  That’s not what we were interested in making.

We wanted real chocolate.  Rich. Creamy. Indulgent. The kind you hide from the rest of the household and then deny knowing anything about.  Just made differently.  

And rather than taking our word for it, we’d tell you to read our reviews.

So…chocolate for breakfast?  We’re not here to tell you what to eat for breakfast.  But we are here to make you reconsider what you thought chocolate had to be.  Because when you take something familiar, remove an ingredient everyone assumed was necessary, and replace it with something as simple as a date…Chocolate starts looking a little different.  And maybe that’s the point.

Are you date-ing yet?

References

1. Al-Farsi, M.A. & Lee, C.Y. Nutritional and functional properties of dates: a review. Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, 2008.
   
2. Maqsood, S. et al. Nutritional and biological characteristics of the date palm fruit (Phoenix dactylifera L.) – A review. Food Bioscience, 2020.
   
3. Martín, M.Á. & Ramos, S. Impact of cocoa flavanols on human health. Food and Chemical Toxicology, 2021.
   
4. How Healthy Is It to Fortify Cocoa-Based Products with Cocoa Flavanols? A Comprehensive Review. Nutrients, 2023.