Vegan Hot Cocoa: Healthy Fats for a Cold Climate
“The metabolism of fats creates body heat, since they pack twice as many calories per gram as protein or carbohydrate, a high-fat diet helps maintain normal body temperatures better than a high-protein or high-starch diet could.”– Annemarie Colbin, Certified Health Education Specialist in her book Food and Healing
We live in northern Vermont, where it is very cold for many months of the year. Today we wanted something hot
and sweet to drink without breaking down and heading to Dunkin Donuts, so we made a modified version of Gwyneth Paltrow’s hot cocoa from her recent Winter Detox plan. She gets a lot of bad press for her recipes being unaffordable, but we purchased ingredients to make our extremely similar cocoa for six people for $13.78- that’s $2.29 per cocoa about the size of a Dunkin Donuts medium drink, which is definitely less than they charge for their deluxe beverages. Not only that, our cocoa had some redeeming value! While you’d still only want to have it as a treat, our cocoa featured healthy fats from coconut milk, almond milk and cashew butter, low-glycemic sweetening from agave syrup, and the natural deodorizing and detoxifying effects of chlorophyll. The cocoa was rich and creamy, just sweet enough, and not too heavy in my stomach. Here’s hoping the calories keep me warm tonight!
Recipe:
- 2 cups unsweetened almond milk
- 1 tiny can coconut milk
- 2 tablespoons cashew butter
- 1/2 cup high fat cocoa powder (I’d love to try raw cacao, but we didn’t trek out to the natural food store)
- 1/4 cup liquid chlorophyll
- 3 tablespoons 100% agave syrup
- Heat on stove until ingredients are combined but not boiling.
- pour mixture in blender and pulse until cashew butter is fully combined.
- Pour back in pot and heat until desired drinking temperature.
- Serve!
Since my folks live near the grocery store, we stopped by and made a cup for my dad. Despite his initial disappointed cry of “chlorophyll?!?!” as I was unpacking the ingredients he enjoyed his hot cocoa very much after a day of skiing.
Sounds yummy! I made the gingerbread drink you suggested and it was also very good…highly recommend.