Genius Food #4

Dark Chocolate

Did you know that cacao beans were honored as valid
currency in the Mexico City region until as recently as
1887? This valuable fruit is as historically revered as it is
healthy. It’s also among the richest natural food sources of
magnesium, according to my friend Tero Isokauppila, a
Finnish foraging expert, a medicinal mushroom proprietor,
and one of the most knowledgeable guys on cacao I know.
Some of the most impactful benefits of eating chocolate,
a naturally fermented food, come from its abundance of
flavanols, a type of polyphenol. Cocoa flavanols have been
shown to reverse signs of cognitive aging and improve
insulin sensitivity, vascular function, and blood flow to the

brain, and even athletic performance.^1 Of nearly one
thousand cognitively healthy people aged twenty-three to
ninety-eight, those who ate chocolate at least once a week
were found to have stronger cognitive performance on
visual-spatial memory and working memory and tests of

abstract reasoning.^2 But how can we make sure the cocoa
we’re buying is the right kind, given the seemingly endless
options at our local supermarkets?
To start, check the label to make sure that the cocoa has
not been “processed with alkali,” also known as Dutch
processing (usually it will say on the ingredients list, right