Best Friends Cocoa
91-2 Mystic Street, Arlington, MA 02474
(800) 761-0035 • (781) 648-0197 within MA
We are proud of the great taste of Best Friends Cocoa, but we would be remiss if we didn't tell you how much healthier it is compared to other cocoa mixes. We purchased six cocoa mixes and compared their nutritional content and ingredients to ours. Here are some of the reasons why BFC is a much healthier hot cocoa mix.
We use only 100% natural ingredients in our hot cocoa mixes. We will never use any artificial sweeteners, flavors or colors. Check out the ingredient list of your favorite cocoa mix and see how it compares to BFC. One national brand even has sucralose (an artificial sweetener branded as Splenda) in their regular mix (not a sugar-free style) which lowers its carbohydrates and calorie count, but there is no mention of this except in the ingredient list.
Our cocoa mix is made with pure high-grade cocoa powder which is naturally low in fat (we use a very low fat variety) and non-fat dry milk. There is only 1 gram of fat in a 32 gram serving and it has no saturated or trans-fats. The small amount of fat is from the cocoa powder, which is the low fat part of the cocoa bean (cocoa butter contains most of the fat). We don't add any additional fat; many other cocoa mixes add some form of hydrogenated fats.
Our cocoa mix is formulated to be mixed with water, but, of course, you can use milk if you prefer. One famous chocolate brand's cocoa mix says to use hot milk. It is misleading in that their nutritional chart doesn't show values with milk added. The numbers on their label are inaccurate when compared to the finished drink. In fact, that famous cocoa mix has ground chocolate so it is actually a drinking or European hot chocolate, not hot cocoa.
One of the hottest buzzwords in food these days is antioxidants. A 2003 study at Cornell University shows that cocoa has "nearly twice the antioxidants of red wine and up to three times those found in green tea." The report also states that "high content of compounds called phenolic phytochemicals, or flavonoids, indicating the presence of known antioxidants that can stave off cancer, heart disease and other ailments." One leading brand is even touting its antioxidant content on the front of its package, but they have added hydrogenated fats and artificial ingredients as well.
Our cocoa mix has 15% of the RDA for calcium in each serving. This come from the non-fat dry milk we use instead of whey which is used in many other cocoa mixes. The most calcium we have seen in other cocoa mixes is 10% of the RDA, and some have as low as 4% or even 0%. One mother who noted this in our nutrition information said it was a great way to get more calcium into her children's diet.
Our cocoa mix has no nut products, nor is it produced on machinery or in a plant where nut products are used. In fact the only nuts in our company are Linda (The Cocoa Queen) and Uri (The Cocoa Jester)!
BFC is Kosher certified by KVH (Rabbinical Council of New England). Get some for your next Bar/Bat Mitzvah, Purim party, or your Temple's kitchen.
Our goal is to highlight the high quality cocoa we use in our mix so we blend in less sugar than most other brands. One national brand of cocoa appears to be much lower in sugar and calories than Best Friends Cocoa. A close examination of its ingredients shows that it has sucralose (same as Splenda - an artificial sweetener) and no mention of it on the front of the package.
We have been told that a single serving of BFC is only 1 Weight Watchers point! This means you can enjoy our deep chocolate flavor on just about any diet!
One serving of BFC has 6 grams of protein. The next highest we've found in other cocoa mixes was 4 grams of protein, with most having as little as 1 gram. The difference is from our use of non-fat milk instead of whey.
A serving of BFC has just 75 mg of sodium, which is much less that the 125-170 mg of sodium we find in most other brands.
A serving of BFC has less caffiene than a cup of decaf coffee. Cocoa powder is very low in caffeine to begin with. This article shows that cocoa powder has from 0.1-0.5% caffeine. Since cocoa powder is usually only about 10% of a hot cocoa mix (ours has more!), that means no cocoa mix brands could have more than about 0.01-0.05% of caffeine which means all are 99.9% caffeine free. We bring this up because another national brand is touting that number on the front of their package.
Cocoa powder is made from ground cocoa beans and so it has fiber. BFC has 1 gram of fiber per serving (4% RDA). Most of the other cocoas had less than one gram or even stated that they weren't a signifigant source of fiber. One gram isn't a large amount of fiber but it is better than any soda or soft drink.