If you’ve made this mistake, you are not alone.

The tasty chocolate colored dessert that you just enjoyed tasted a little like chocolate, but kind of didn’t so you just assumed it was a varied form of chocolate. No matter it tasted fantastic.

Well, yes it looks like chocolate but actually it was carob.

Vegan Carob

Back in the 1980’s when the health food craze was booming, we knew a number of families who only ate health foods. They were fastidious.

Good for them.

One of the wonderful snacks they turned us onto was carob.

What is carob exactly?

Carob is a brown floury powder extracted from the carob bean, used as a substitute for chocolate.

According to carobana.com, “Carob is native to the eastern Mediterranean, probably the Middle East, where it has been in cultivation for at least 4000 years. The plant was well known to the ancient Greeks, who planted seeds of this plant in Greece and Italy.

Records show that carob was intentionally introduced into the United States in 1854, and the first seedlings were apparently planted in California in 1873.

The fruit of carob is a pod, technically a legume 15 to 30 centimeters in length and fairly thick and broad.”

Very educational. Did not know that.

So why eat carob?

Sharing makes the world grow and go round. At healthline.com they share and explain why. “Adding carob to your diet can provide you with many health benefits. Since carob is naturally high in fiber and has no caffeine, it’s ideal for people with high blood pressure. The low sugar and fat content also makes it a great dietary addition or chocolate substitution for people looking to lose weight. The high levels of vitamins, such as vitamins A and B-2, are good for your skin and eye health.

Like cocoa, carob contains polyphenols, which are antioxidants known to reduce the risk of heart disease. Research shows that adding polyphenol-rich foods such as carob to your diet may help reduce high cholesterol.”

When we tasted it in times past, we knew that it was good but kind of lost touch with it.

Working with our female grapplers, many of whom are mothers, they are very health conscious about the needs of their children.

One great mother that we’ve worked with over and over is Olivia D’Angelo.

She’s often discussed with us the value of female grappling heading in a more conservative direction and we agree with her 100 percent.

We love for moms to get involved in grappling especially if they compete like Olivia and reign supreme as she did against:

VS SAMANTHA GRACE

There are certain matches that occur where you say to yourself as a producer and cooperative group that we need to change the rules so that this doesn’t happen again. This is one of those matches. This is why we collectively came up with the idea of ranking the female wrestlers by Division so that one doesn’t completely get devastated as Samantha does here by San Jose tough girl, Olivia D’Angelo.

To say Olivia dominates this match is like saying sugar cubes have a little bit of sugar in it. This was so devastating that we thought about stopping it. Samantha is looking beautiful, feminine and very shapely so with an up close video camera, in this fully competitive match it’s extremely methodical and erotic.

VS DANA

San Jose tough girl Olivia D’ Angelo has numerous victories under her female grappling belt. Here she takes on gorgeous curvy girl Dana Vixen who is a newer fighter but certainly not a rookie. Olivia tends to be a great front runner so we expect her to take it to Dana.

Olivia also tends to show no mercy when she dominates as she did against cute girl Samantha Grace and new sweet faced Eden. Dana makes it clear she is up for the fight and what we get is one sexy furious battle. You’ll also love the very candid conversations between the girls during a break after Dana was temporarily injured and the pre-match interviews. Another show down in San Jose. Ground level, furious, curvy girl action. Very sexy.

VS EDEN

Olivia has been around the competitive female wrestling scene for some time. She is a tough girl out of San Jose CA. Young, feminine, sweet Eden agrees to take her on with only a few bouts under her belt and at this point, no victories. As you would expect, Olivia was relentless and merciless completely dominating Eden who put up a strong fight but given Olivia’s rage agreed the fight should be called early. It was. Enjoy the fight up close, erotic and personal.

Her matches can be found in the store at http://grapplingstars.com/fvsf-wrestling-videos/

Health foods and loving moms go together like carob in a variety of desserts.

Let’s get healthy and happy by listening to a visiting writer.

By Revka Stearns

Indulge Your Taste for Chocolate – Guilt-free

What do you do when you love chocolate but are concerned about the calories, caffeine, and other harmful substances it contains?

That is the question with which my mother dealt while I was growing up. My father is border-line sugar diabetic, but he has a sweet tooth, particularly when it comes to chocolate. His all-time favorite cake is still German chocolate cake. Mom checked into healthy alternatives for chocolate and discovered carob powder.

Because they taste very similar, carob powder is a great substitute for cocoa, and it’s a breeze to use: just replace the cocoa powder prescribed in any recipe with the same amount of carob powder. By so doing, you will get the chocolate taste you crave without putting your health at risk.

UCLA Professor Arthur C. Gibson teaches a course on economic botany and has written the manual used as a textbook for the course. In his informative essay on carob located on UCLA’s botanical garden web site, Professor Gibson describes the nutritional advantages of carob powder when compared with cocoa powder:

“Although this product has a slightly different taste than chocolate, it has only one-third the calories (total 1595 calories per pound), is virtually fat-free (chocolate is half fat), is rich in pectin, is non-allergenic, has abundant protein, and has no oxalic acid, which interferes with absorption of calcium. Consequently, carob flour is widely used in health foods for chocolate-like flavoring.”

Carob powder is generally available from health food stores and can also be purchased over the Internet.

Here is a recipe from Barry Farm Foods to start you on your path to guilt-free indulgence:

CHOCOLATE FUDGE

2 c. sugar

6 T. Carob powder

2 T. butter

2/3 c. milk

Pinch of salt

1 t. vanilla

Combine sugar, milk, salt and carob powder. Bring mixture to boil, not stirring. Boil to soft ball stage (234-238°F). Add butter and vanilla and cool without stirring ’til butter melts. Beat mixture ’til creamy and thickening and shine disappears. Pour into well-buttered pan. Cut into squares.

NOTE: If you want nutty fudge, add 1/2 c. chopped nuts when you add the vanilla.

Enjoy your guilt-free “chocolate” indulgence!

Revka Stearns is a SAHM whose blog, The Porch Light, shares her thoughts and ideas about family, faith, parenting, and life in general. You can view The Porch Light at ourfamilyporch.blogspot.com

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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Revka_Stearns/61481
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/361364 

http://www.carobana.com.au/carob.html

http://www.healthline.com/health/5-best-things-about-carob#Nutrition4

http://www.healthline.com/health/5-best-things-about-carob#Healthbenefits5 

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