In the past few years, a lot of articles and publications kept circulating about the importance of buying chocolate bars with higher cacao percentage, since it’s supposed to be healthier.

The amount of people that started to order chocolates online spiked in search of the healthiest chocolate, since the belief was that get the highest cacao percentage for the best results. The focus was shifted to numbers and marketing chocolates online and in-stores revolved around cocoa percentage.

The reality is that the total percentage of cacao can be increased by not only the pure cocoa powder, but also from cacao butter.

Cacao butter is the fat that is present inside the cacao bean. Even though it is an important ingredient in any chocolate, cocoa butter is not the healthiest of ingredients due to the high calorie and over 60% of its fats are saturated fats.

This is to say that when a chocolate bar displays a percentage of cacao on its label, it does not refer to cocoa powder exclusively. It is the sum of the amount of cacao powder and cacao butter together that is being displayed. As we quickly learned, a high amount of cacao butter (which is not the healthiest) does not mean a better or healthier chocolate bar.

What you need to do as a consumer, is read the ingredient list wisely. Look for products that contain more cocoa powder or simply cocoa than cocoa butter. Cheap manufacturers are skewing the ratios between cocoa powder and cocoa by adding a lot of cocoa butter thus raising the cacao percentage to attract more customers.

That doesn’t mean there are no good or reputable chocolate that can easily be found with a simple search. One store for example, chocolak.com has a big range of high quality products where you can order chocolates online and get them delivered to your home. Chocolak also provide you with many information about each product to exactly know what you are getting so you can feel free while choosing among different chocolate birthday cake or chocolate gift boxes.

Now you have a better idea about what does the cacao percentage printed on chocolate bars mean and can make wiser choices while looking for premium products. In certain cases when not enough information is provided on the nutritional label of a product, I advise you to message the manufacturing company and their customer service departments are usually happy to communicate the percentages with you, as withholding such information from a client is not of their best business interest.