Chocolate.

Brownies, cupcakes, cookies, pies, cheesecakes, truffles, pudding, candy bars, ice cream, CHOCOLATE.

I think at least 2 times per day I hear from someone that tells me that they would be vegan if it weren’t for chocolate. This always catches me off guard. Partly because I’m always surprised that people associate vegan with salad, or vegetables. First, I want to say that I’m completely and totally for a healthy vegan diet. HEALTHY! However, there is the occasional cookie for me, or brownie, or chocolate. I mean, I’m a girl. I’m pretty sure that chocolate is a right that we all have. And, there are healthy ways to have chocolate. But I’m not even going to talk about the healthy way to have chocolate right now, I’m going to talk about how there is this really warped view that vegans only eat carrots. Really, it’s a shame. I want to dispel some myths regarding chocolate (and other things). *I am doing this with a huge disclaimer, yes I want you to be vegan, no I don’t want you to think that eating junk food as a vegan is going to get you losing weight and becoming completely healthy – although, I’d say that you are still better off than eating animal products, because there are a lot more reasons to become vegan aside from health.

Whew. With that being said… let’s talk about chocolate.

Chocolate does not come from animals. My Dad used to tell me that chocolate milk came from brown cows. If your Dad told you the same thing, I hate to break it to you, he lied. Yep, your Dad lied to you. Chocolate is a plant. I KNOW. A plant. See, plants = good. It comes from a tropical tree and the seeds of that tree produce what we know as chocolate. No animals involved.

The cocoa bean is then processed and that usually turns into a cocoa powder, and that’s when people mess it all up. Some people don’t think chocolate is good enough to not mess with. These people add things to it like eggs, milk or butter, and frankly, if you love chocolate, you should HATE that people are messing with it. Chocolate is good, and it doesn’t need the reproductive products of animals to be thrown into it to make it better. In fact, I’d say if you really like chocolate, you should enjoy it as pure as possible.

Eat raw chocolate. The next time you are at a place that sells raw stuff, or organic groceries look for raw chocolate truffles. They will blow your mind. And they are raw, they aren’t even comprimised by baking anything out of it. If you like chocolate, and you are eating the watered down versions of it, really, you can’t call yourself a chocolate lover. You are a fraud, I’m sorry to break it to you. If you only eat chocolate after it’s been processed with animal products all you are really eating is milk/eggs/butter/cheap sugar with a chocolate taste. I am here to tell you, that chocolate is so good that it doesn’t need all of that junk. And I’m here to tell you that as a vegan, you won’t just be able to eat chocolate, the chocolate is BETTER. Like a million times better.

Find your favorite chocolate recipe and make it vegan – use organic sugar, use non dairy milk, use applesauce, banana or energ-g egg replacer, flax seed to replace the egg in a recipe, and I promise you won’t only not be able to tell the difference, it will be better. Or… just start googling “vegan chocolate cake” or “vegan brownies” or “vegan followed by anything that you really think you would miss by going vegan.

Because aside from chocolate, there are so many things that you do not have to forever give up because you decided to go vegan. And I’d almost be completely confident in saying that almost any taste, flavor, and dish can be veganized, and I’d go as far as saying, if you are truly a food lover, eating things that are not dead, or filled with things like pus is a LOT better and tastes a lot better than whatever it is you think you are giving up. That’s right, I’m saying you are not truly a lover of food if you are not vegan.

Aside from chocolate people seem to be genuinely suprised when I mention things like: waffles, burgers, benedict, pancakes, pies, chips, cookies, BBQ.. I could go on, but you probably get the point. All of those things that you somehow thought you would be giving up for good are all things made better by taking the rotting, dead animal out of it, or the reproductive products of animals out of it. If taste is what you are going after, becoming vegan is the best thing you could possibly do for your taste buds. Your taste buds will love you.

So before you tell me that you just can’t be vegan, because you have to give up chocolate, remember that chances are the chocolate you have been eating is just a cheap knock off of the real stuff. This should cause you to want to hug me, and I accept internet hugs.

And tomorrow will be recipe Friday and I will feature chocolate recipes! LOTS of chocolate recipes! And I’ll even tell you what to look for in the grocery store, and then you’ll want to hug me even more.