It feels like the holidays just got over, but the Holiday Death Aisle is BACK…. and this time we are bombarded with store shelves filled with red, pink and white junk and pretty heart-shaped boxes filled with toxic chocolates by brands like Russell Stovers, Godiva, and Hallmark. Take a look at the ingredients in these Valentine’s Day chocolates below and you’ll quickly realize that they’re just selling cheap ingredients wrapped up in fancy-looking packages. Why would you give your Valentine a “gift” filled with heart-wrecking partially hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup, artificial colors derived from petroleum, nasty preservatives, artificial flavors, GMO oils, sugar from GMO Roundup-Ready sugar beets, and the absolute worst ingredients you can put in food? How do these companies keep getting away with this?
Let’s be real here – eating chocolate on occasion is absolutely an okay treat – but consideration needs to be made when choosing how to get your fix.
Unfortunately, our food system’s top priority is the bottom line so we need to pay attention to the ingredient label on every single product we buy. Chocolate can provide a daily dose of much needed antioxidants or it can be a chemistry experiment full of man-made artificial ingredients. I do not like supporting brands that try to trick me into buying questionable ingredients. Voting with your dollars is one of the only ways to voice disgust for the unhealthy chemicals in food, and it can also directly influence change by hitting the bottom line of the food companies that continue to sells us cheap, harmful, and potentially dangerous ingredients.
And, I don’t know about you… but when I’m presented with a box of chocolates it’s really hard for me to eat just one.. or two.. or three… I tend to really overindulge! That’s where this super simple and healthier chocolate treat comes in…
This Five-Minute Creamy Chocolate Mousse is one of the recipes included in the Maintaining Your Success After Detox Guide from my 7-Day Sugar Detox Program, which shows you the healthiest ways to enjoy sweets without sabotaging your health. Expecting to live without sweets and desserts for the rest of your life is just crazy, and no one would ever be successful trying to maintain a diet like that!
The key is to only choose treats that are both sweet and nutritious. That way you’ll satisfy your cravings but still get a dose of fiber, vitamins, and minerals. Eventually you’ll develop a distaste for processed refined sugars and your desire for ultimate nutrition will become instinctive.
Nutrient-dense whole food sweeteners include:
- Whole fruit
- Coconut palm sugar
- Raw honey
- Maple syrup
- Date sugar
- Dried fruit
To avoid temptations, get these “bad sugars” out of your pantry and life (your body doesn’t need them!):
- White sugar (regular table sugar)
- Brown sugar
- Powdered sugar
- Corn syrup
- Agave nectar
- Splenda, Nutrasweet, or other artificial sweeteners
Not only is this chocolate mousse lightning-QUICK to make, but it’s sweetened with a touch of maple syrup and the natural sweetness found in coconut and vanilla. When you top it with some high-fiber berries, such as raspberries or blackberries, you’ll help to slow the absorption of those natural sugars into the body – which is MUCH healthier than eating a few Valentine’s Day chocolates (and actually more delicious than those chemical-filled things anyway)!
Ready to whip up this mousse? You only need five simple ingredients… cacao powder, maple syrup, vanilla extract, coconut cream, and almond milk…
You can buy coconut cream on its own, or what I typically do is purchase 1-2 cans of organic BPA-free coconut milk and scrape off the thick cream that has settled on top of the can.
Just throw these five ingredients in a good high-powered blender along with a handful of ice cubes and blend on high for a few minutes until nice and creamy. Adding a pinch of sea salt helps to bring out the sweetness and balances the flavor…
And voila!!! That’s it. In just five minutes, you’ve got a decadent, creamy, chocolatey dessert that will satisfy any chocolate craving without any nasty refined sugar or additives! I like to top mine with strawberries and cacao nibs, but you can use either or neither… whatever you prefer. A sprinkling of chopped raw nuts would be good too! Letting it sit in the fridge for a few hours helps thicken it up too if you like your mousse to be denser.
- 2 cups coconut cream or 2 cups fresh coconut meat
- ¼ cup almond milk (alternative: coconut water )
- ¼-½ cup cacao powder, depending on how chocolatey you prefer
- ¼ cup pure maple syrup, more as desired
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- pinch sea salt
- fresh berries
- cacao nibs
- coconut flakes
- Place all of the ingredients in a blender along with a handful of ice cubes and blend on high until smooth and creamy.
- Top with fresh berries or cacao nibs. Enjoy!
Please use all organic ingredients if possible.
Please share this recipe!
If you know anyone who is a chocolate fanatic and would love a recipe like this, please share this post with them! Let’s spread the word that we can still enjoy dessert without unhealthy processed ingredients!
Xo,
Vani
The samples you showed us, was that from a chemical company or food company ? Sometimes I can’t tell the difference………..
Love your Recipe, Vani , Thanks !!!!!!!
Do you have a substitute suggestion for the coconut cream? We have a severe coconut allergy in our family ? Thanks for all of your recipes and efforts!
You could try organic cream from dairy – good luck!
Dear Food Babe,
Thank you for your great work and insight into these chemical s called food. My daughter just received Shari’s Berries for her birthday and I read the ingredient list for the chocolates – just a mine field of disastrous and poisonous chemicals – absolutely unbelievable what companies expect us to eat.
Thank you.
yikes!
Do you have a favorite brand of cocoa?
Is there a substitute for maple syrup?
Thanks so much
You can substitute organic honey for maple syrup. Delicious
What can you sub for coconut Cream that’s non dairy? Always so hard to get that rich consistency!
What’s your favorite cacoa brand?
Happy V DAY!
Maybe cashew cream? You blend cashews and a little water in a blender…
Sounds delish!
Couldn’t agree more. Good chocolate—the healthy and tasty kind—must be composed of at least 70% and shouldn’t contain more than 5 or 6 ingredients… otherwise, it’s not chocolate.
Look for Cocoa mass or paste as a primary ingredient, usually followed by some cocoa butter and sweetener (organic cane sugar is preferable), and vanilla. If you can get your hands on dark organic chocolate, then lecithin is permissible as an emulsifier. If it’s not organic, just remember that its source is soy, which happens to the be the biggest GMO crop on the planet.
My favorite is Righteously raw 83% cacao organic chocolate. Ingredients: organic cacao butter, organic cacao powder, organic agave, organic coconut oil and organic vanilla. That’s it.
Hi,
First congratulations on being a new mum. I appreciate your role as food warrior, showing us the bad.
However, I am very surprised that you are not promoting the use of Fair Trade chocolate. The whole idea of fair trade is to give the workers a fair living wage, just as you or I would want.
There is much online about the poor labour practices involved in our chocolate. Just plug in “chocolate slavery” in your search engine, and quite a lot will come up. You can watch documentaries (The Dark Side of Chocolate, The Bitter Truth about Chocolate) to learn that often children work in cacao plantations, and besides being abused with long hours and punishment if they cry, they are essentially SLAVES, paid nothing.
As a local food activist, I have been writing about Slavery in the Food Industry for a while, and chocolate is one of the worst, especially if the chocolate treat also contains sugar that is not grown with the Fair Trade label.
Please do not promote regular cocoa powder anymore.
I love fair trade chocolate and it’s very important – thanks for the reminder!
My understanding about BPA free cans is the companies are now using another chemical worse than BPA.
Vani looking forward to having some fun making this mousse for our Valentine’s Day social with family. Pam sent me the recipe and it looks and sounds great! Hope all is well with food baby. Hugs
Thank you!!!! Love you guys!
Thanks, Vani for being a conscientious connoisseur of chocolate and providing that yummy mousse recipe. I recently bought 365 every day value organic cocoa powder (from fair trade cocoa beans). It’s fair trade certified. Also, Organic Valley produces grass fed cow milk which contains real cream since they do not homogenize. I have yet to read all your wonderful suggestions – a pleasure in time. Congratulations on being a new mum!
Did I see propane in that ingredient list!?
Here’s a suggestion to make the mousse a special Valentine’s Day dessert- put berry pieces on it in a heart shape. That’s what I did with chocolate custard last Valentine’s and everyone enjoyed it.
I thought real cocoa was good for you? The Aztecs ate it.
There are people who have side effects from just a tiny but of chocolate and from the chemicals from the ingredients in your recipe, it is the same if you are allergic to chemicals in our medications, take one pill and I will break out with hives from my toes to my head.
I just made your mousse – it’s AMAZING!!! 10 out of 5! 🙂
Coconut cream always confuses me. Is it the same as coconut butter or mana? They taste the same to me, but I never see a swap mentioned.
Great Valentines day chocolate mousse recipe! Definitely going to add this one to my list of Valentines day treats.
I love this recipe but one tip: make sure the coconut cream is chopped up before putting in the blender….I found it almost impossible to blend it since it was so hard and there’s so little liquid in the recipe. Thanks for the healthy, delicious recipe!
Food Babe, I have marched against GMO’s, but you can choose not to eat them, you can choose not to drink fluoride, you can choose not to get vaccinated, but when I learned of the Climate Engineering going on above my head, and the amount of aluminum being sprayed on us to control the weather, I was p-ssed, Alzheimer’s here we come. I tested rain water and soil off of the roof of my house and there was massive amounts of aluminum in both, that should not be there. I watch the jets turn the spray on and off almost daily to suck up any moisture in our once beautiful blue sky here in Arizona. Our gov’t is poisoning the air we breath, the soil it lands on, killing the forests, causing them to burn hotter, intentionally creating droughts, and controlling our water. Please investigate Geoengineering.
I was SO excited about this recipe!! I’m not sure what I did wrong? I didn’t have cacao powder, so I used cocoa powder. And was out of maple syrup, so I used coconut nectar. I wouldn’t think that would make a difference?? I put everything in my vitamix for 2 mins. When it was done all the coconut cream was clumped together and the rest of the ingredients were watery? Any ideas? I had a small serving anyway and it tasted good. However my stomach felt really queasy all night and the next day. I’m guessing from the high fat content? I’m also wondering if it would have felt better in my tummy if it was combined when I ate it.
This definitely fulfilled my chocolate craving and was SO yummy and simple. And, the best part is that I already had all the ingredients, except I substituted just a little bit of organic coconut palm sugar for maple syrup. I didn’t have quite enough coconut milk, so it came out a little bit thin, but it didn’t matter. It was still delicious!
Can this be made the day before? Would you suggest freezing or refrigerating it after its made?
I want to make this for our cooking class at church this weekend so I thought I would try it first. I only made 1/2 the recipe and had all the ingredients. It came out a little thin. I have it in the fridge hoping it will firm up….but I think I ate about 1/4 of it because it is Dee-Lish! I may add the second can of coconut cream only and see if it thickens up. Thank you for this yummy recipe.
Hi Foobabe,
Thank you sooo much for all your lovely recipes! Enjoy reading every blog you post. Can I substitute honey instead of maple syrup? Any particular brand for the coconut cream? Thanks!
Number of grams of carbs?
I’m on the Seven Day Detox right now but hope to try this mousse recipe for Valentine’s Day!