I’m on a journey to purge our pantry of toxic foods. I fully recognize that chocolate and sugar can be very unhealthy in large quantities – and yet, I love baking with chocolate chips! It brings me joy. I won’t eliminate chocolate from my diet but I will find a source of chocolate that won’t introduce unnecessary toxins. We’re also on a money and time budget so I have to balance high quality with expense.
Acceptable options
To start, I made a list of chocolate chip products that are organic and don’t have unnecessary ingredients. Then for each option I calculated the price per pound, using the smallest size quantity offered (many offer bulk option which lowers the price).1 Since all of these brands seem to have acceptable ingredients I simply sort by price.
Clean ingredient options found on Azure and Amazon:
I purchased #1 below. Once we receive them and bake with them we’ll report back on whether they’re recommended.
- Azure Standard Organics (55%)
- $9.07/pound (possible shipping/fees)2
- organic cane sugar, organic cocoa mass (cocoa liquor), organic cocoa butter
- Equal Exchange (55%)
- $10.86/pound (possible shipping/fees)3
- *organic chocolate liquor, *organic raw cane sugar, *organic cocoa butter, *organic cocoa powder. *fair trade ingredient. by weight 71% fair trade content.
- Possibly high in cadmium (see Consumer Reports)
- Gerbs (68%)
- $11.50/pound (free shipping with prime)4
- Organic cane sugar, unsweetened chocolate, non-dairy cocoa butter. They also advertise as non-GMO, chemical & pesticide free.
- Pascha (55%)
- $13.63/pound (free shipping with prime) 5
- Organic cane sugar, organic chocolate liquor, organic cocoa butter
- Although possibly high in cadmium (see Consumer Reports). Thank you to this kind stranger for pointing me to the report.
- Hu Kitchen (70%)
- $26.67/pound (free shipping with prime) 6
- Organic Cacao, Unrefined Organic Coconut Sugar, Organic Fair-trade Cocoa Butter.
- Possibly high in lead (see Consumer Reports).
Option: Go niche, go direct:
I also recognize there are many great niche brands out there! For example, you could take a look at these (I didn’t vet all of them): 16 chocolate brands with highest quality ingredients. If you go with one of these, just check to ensure they have organic and no unnecessary ingredients.
I love the idea of going direct to the producer to help them with their business, especially for producers with values similar to mine. For now only due to my time constraints, I’m starting with what’s available at Amazon or Azure Standard.
Avoid
What brands didn’t make the cut?
Any brand that has unnecessary or non-organic ingredients didn’t make the cut.
Chocolate only needs to contain cacao beans and optionally some form of sugar and milk, maybe a dash of salt or vanilla. Cacao beans can come in the format of cacao powder, cacao butter, cacao liquor – but the point is to be as close to cacao bean as God designed it, as little processing as possible. Of course, since I’m not growing, harvesting, and processing these beans myself, there will be limitations.
Examples of chocolate with poor ingredients:
- GHIRARDELLI (60%)
- $5.94/pound (free shipping with Prime)7
- Unsweetened chocolate, cane sugar, cocoa butter, milkfat, soy lecithin, vanilla extract.
- ISSUES: not organic, likely GMO soy used & hexane8; soy lecithin seems to be highly controversial – read this article to get grossed out
- Hershey’s
- $11.32/pound (free shipping w/ Prime)9
- Sugar, chocolate, cocoa butter, milkfat, lecithin (soy), natural flavor, milk
- ISSUES: not organic, soy lecithin (likely GMO soy used & hexane), natural flavor could be made of thousands of chemicals without safety testing.
Conclusion
Thanks for reading! Let me know in the comments if you recommend any chocolate chip brands not mentioned above!
Footnotes
- Please note that many don’t come in an even 1 lb quantity. For example Hu Kitchen chocolate comes in 9oz so I had to do a little math 🙂 ↩︎
- Sold as 1lb @ $9.07 or 33.07lb @$208.56 ($6.31/lb). Also 5lb, 10lb option. Prices taken from website March 24, 2024 ↩︎
- Sold as 10oz @$6.79 / 12x10oz@$54.71 ($7.29/lb) (although they have a 18% off sale today I’m assuming that is unusual and didn’t use the sale price). Prices taken from website March 24, 2024 ↩︎
- Sold as 2lbs@$22.99, free shipping with Prime. Prices taken from website March 24, 2024 ↩︎
- 6×8.8oz@$44.99, free shipping with Prime. Prices taken from website March 24, 2024 ↩︎
- 9oz@$10.99 from Whole Foods + $9.95 delivery; or 9oz@$15.00 but free shipping with Prime. Prices taken from website March 24, 2024 ↩︎
- 20oz@$7.42, free shipping with Prime. Prices taken from website March 24, 2024 ↩︎
- Healthline, “Is Soy Lecithin Good or Bad for Me?”; likely used GMO soy & hexane to extract ↩︎
- 12oz@$8.49, free shipping with Prime. Prices taken from website March 24, 2024 ↩︎
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