Most of us are aware of Ketogenic diet, better known as Keto diet, or have at least heard about it. But what exactly is this diet and what are the best foods to eat in this diet? Is our favourite BeeTee’s Melt 72% Dark Chocolate with Palm Sugar Keto friendly? Let’s take a look:

Keto diet is a low carb, high fat diet. It helps in weight loss and has many other health benefits. This diet is followed under the guidance of an expert. Healthline.com explains, “It involves drastically reducing carbohydrate intake and replacing it with fat. This reduction in carbs puts your body into a metabolic state called ketosis. When this happens, your body becomes incredibly efficient at burning fat for energy. It also turns fat into ketones in the liver, which can supply energy for the brain. Ketogenic diets can cause significant reductions in blood sugar and insulin levels…”

Normally, carbohydrates are the source of glucose (sugar) which in turn is the source of energy in the cells. In a Keto diet, the carbs are cut down and fat intake increased. Proteins are also consumed in moderation. And the result is a metabolic state known as ketosis and in this, the body uses fat to give fuel to the body. Of course, the doctors monitor the person to see the formation of ketones and subsequent health benefits.  

Which foods are consumed in a Keto Diet?
Mostly the diet consists of:

• Fish such as salmon, tuna
• Meats like red meat, chicken
• Hard boiled eggs
• Butter and cream
• Healthy oils such as avocado and olive oils
• Unprocessed cheese
• Nuts like almond, flaxseeds, chia
• Dark chocolate
• Olives
• Full fat yogurt

The carbs are limited to 20-50 gm per day.

This is just a tentative list. Please do not follow any diet without consulting an expert.

Educate Yourself: Research & Planning

To understand the foods, it’s best to check the food labels and read about the foods before buying and consuming. The portion size also matters. For any successful endeavour, there needs to be a plan in place and that must be diligently followed.

Since I am fond of dark chocolate and tend to look for a new brand from time to time, I decided to find out more about the benefits so that it is guilt-free indulgence. And during this search I found an Artisan Chocolate brand—BeeTee’s Melt. The brand’s promise is ‘bean to bar chocolates’, which means that it is involved in all the processes such as roasting, cracking, winnowing, grinding, tempering, moulding and packing the finished chocolate bar. The final product is ‘Gluten free, Soy free, Refined sugar free, Preservative free’. The finest quality cacaa beans are sourced from a single farm. ‘No cacao powder. No cacao solids. No artificial sweetener and no artificial flavour’. Well, this looked like the perfect chocolate to me. Moreover, it’s handcrafted.

I bought all the 3 flavours available on the site: BeeTee’s Melt 72% Dark Chocolate with Palm Sugar, BeeTee’s Melt 48% Milk Chocolate and BeeTee’s Melt 54% Coconut Milk Chocolate.

As dark chocolate is a temptation that I find hard to resist, my first bite was obviously BeeTee’s Melt 72% Dark Chocolate with Palm Sugar. But everything in excess is bad, so I must educate myself on the pros and cons. My research showed that high quality dark chocolate has nutritional value. The chocolate has minerals, antioxidants and fibre, but the benefits depend on the cacao bean quality and content.

How is dark chocolate made? That’s not tough to figure out, it is a combination of fat, sugar and cacao. There are little or no milk solids, less sugar and more cacao. The sugar balances the bitterness of the cacao. Most dark chocolates will contain 70% cacao. BeeTee’s Melt 72% Dark Chocolate made the mark here with 72%. Palm sugar is also a natural sugar made from the sap in the flower buds of the coconut palm tree.  

How beneficial is dark chocolate? It is rich in flavonoids which are powerful antioxidants. And consuming chocolate in appropriate quantity lowers the risk of heart disease and improves brain function. Carbs are mostly found in sweet stuff such as candies, cakes. BeeTee’s Melt 72% Dark Chocolate is a healthy indulgence, going by the research.  

How much dark chocolate can be safely consumed? To go by experts, 28 gm of dark chocolate contains approximately 10 gm of net carbs. This is when the chocolate is made with 70–85% cacao.

While I felt good about my find, my family tried the other two chocolates–BeeTee’s Melt 48% Milk Chocolate and BeeTee’s Melt 54% Coconut Milk Chocolate. As my 71-year-old mother likes things a little sweeter, she tasted BeeTee’s Melt 48% Milk Chocolate first. This is made from cacao beans, cacao butter, milk solids and sweetened with muscovado sugar. Muscovado, also known as khand, is unrefined cane sugar and better known as artisanal sugar. It is also made with more labour intensive processes than white or other commercial sugars.

Going by my mother’s expression, we knew she liked it, and eventually ended up finishing the entire 55 gm bar. Children will also like this flavour.

Now, besides trying to go on a Keto diet, we have also developed a taste for all things vegan. And BeeTee’s Melt 54% Coconut Milk Chocolate is all things vegan. This is made from cacao beans, cacao butter, coconut milk and sweetened with coconut sugar. It is also an indulgence worth shelling out INR 280 for.

The best thing about BeeTee’s Melt is that you know the amount of cacao from the names as the percentages are listed there. The delivery is quick and the package comes in a special bubblewrap with foam lining and a gel frost pack so that the chocolate doesn’t melt on the way. The brand ships across India. The USP is the transparency. The brand has clearly explained its process on the website.

Well, thanks to the curiosity about Keto diet, I discovered an artisan chocolate brand that offers a healthy dose of my favourite dark chocolate. But it has also made me curious to meet the founder Thamarai, who began making chocolate at the age of 21 using baking chocolate!