Gut healthy super hot chocolate

With the temperatures dropping and the evenings getting longer, what’s better than a cosy cup of hot chocolate? Let Eve Kalinik, Nutritional Therapist extraordinaire, show you her favourite recipe for a gut healthy super hot choc, filled with gut-pleasing flavonols.

One of my all-time favourite hot chocolates is the one served at Café de Flore in Paris. And indeed the luxurious taste of that famous drink was pretty hard to match … until I made this beauty! The combination of cinnamon and star anise makes this stand out flavour-wise and enhances the headline ingredient that is cacao, the purest form of chocolate. This is where it gets really interesting for our gut microbes, as they love chocolate too. That is due to the flavonols that the microbes merrily feast on, which help them to produce anti-inflammatory substances. So you can have your chocolate and eat (or in this case drink) it in moderation, knowing that it does your gut some good too. Just make sure that it’s pure cacao (or cocoa) if you want to get the full benefits. This super hot choc really is a hug in a mug.

SUPER HOT CHOC

Ingredients (serves 1)

200ml milk (Eve recommends home-made cashew milk, ndr)
2 tablespoons cacao powder
1 tablespoon maca powder
1 pitted date
Seeds from 1 vanilla pod
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
Pinch mineral-rich salt
60ml filtered water
1 whole star anise

Method

Put all of the ingredients, except the star anise, into a high speed blender and pulse until thick and creamy.

Pour the liquid into a small saucepan and add the star anise. Heat gently for 4–5 minutes, stirring constantly so it doesn’t burn at the bottom of the pan and you get an even temperature. Pour into a mug and sip with delight.

The above is an extract from Be Good to Your Gut by Eve Kalinik (Piatkus, 2017).

Eve Kalinik is  a registered member of the British Association for Applied Nutrition and Nutritional Therapy (BANT) and the Complementary & Natural Healthcare Council (CNHC). Find more about her practice at evekalinik.com