GCB 63% Tempered Bittersweet Button-Shaped Dark Chocolate: A Healthy Treat or an Obesity Experience

Dark chocolate has in recent years become a temple-grade dessert that health-conscious people around the world pay attention to. The higher the cocoa content and the less oil and sugar mixed in, the more the slightly bitter premium chocolate is favored by adults.

However, the higher the cocoa content, the higher the price. An average of one New Taiwan Dollar per gram is currently a normal market price, and some domestic chocolates claiming estate grade, or some foreign dark chocolates, are priced several times higher.

For those who use chocolate as a companion food for weight loss, fat loss, and fitness, what slims down fastest is actually their wallet.

How to Choose Dark Chocolate

To buy genuine dark chocolate, you need to know how to read the ingredient list. Basically, as long as palm oil is mentioned as an ingredient, you can skip it entirely. This is so-called compound chocolate, and the nutrients originally contained in cocoa beans are essentially absent.

So the most important key when buying dark chocolate is to check whether the ingredients use materials like cocoa mass and cocoa butter. Another commonly seen ingredient, soy lecithin, is used as an emulsifier.

Taking Costco’s dark chocolate as an example, the ingredients include: “cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter, low-fat cocoa powder, sunflower lecithin, natural vanilla flavor.” This is a very standard genuine dark chocolate ingredient list, and can serve as a reference for everyone when choosing in the future.

Recommended Dark Chocolate Sold at Costco

The author previously bought the four-pack French “CÉMOI 82% Dark Chocolate” (CÉMOI 82% Dark Chocolate) at Costco, which works out to about 0.5 yuan per gram, a relatively money-saving choice compared with the market price.

The only small drawback is that each package of CÉMOI 82% Dark Chocolate is one large bar; it melts easily at room temperature, and becomes too hard to take out easily when put in the freezer. Each broken piece of chocolate varies in size, making it hard to eat in measured portions.

Buying Dark Chocolate Food Ingredients Online

Later the author discovered that the chocolate food ingredients used in the baking world for bread, cakes, and Western pastries are chocolate raw materials with extremely high cost-performance, namely the “GCB 63% Dark Chocolate Buttons” introduced to everyone today (there are many varieties; the author just chose one sold through a channel he habitually uses).

The officially introduced product features: “One of the world’s top five cocoa original brands. Refined from Ivory Coast cocoa beans, precisely ground with the latest roller grinder, the chocolate quality is even and fine, with excellent flavor.” From this description, the quality should be reasonably guaranteed.

The market price per kilogram is around 450 yuan, and the author bought it for 360 yuan on sale, which works out to 0.36 yuan per gram. That is considerably cheaper than Costco, though the cocoa butter is only 63%, 19% less than Costco’s 82%.

Although GCB 63%, in terms of concentration and price, is not necessarily cheaper than Costco’s CÉMOI 82%, the button shape of each piece makes it very easy to eat in measured portions, and it can be bought online. Kept in the freezer, you can take out a few pieces anytime to eat, so convenience wins completely.

GCB 63% Dark Chocolate Buttons Packaging

The following photos show the outer packaging of the GCB 63% Dark Chocolate Buttons purchased this time, as well as the appearance of the chocolate buttons inside. The plain packaging might at first glance be mistaken for coffee beans.

Figure 1. Front of the chocolate outer packaging.

Figure 2. Ingredient list.

In the ingredient list in Figure 2 above, you can see that the main ingredients of the GCB 63% Dark Chocolate Buttons use “cocoa, sugar, pure cocoa butter, cocoa powder, soy lecithin, polyglycerol polyricinoleate, vanillin,” among which the cocoa, cocoa butter, and cocoa powder items indicate the use of more cocoa bean ingredients.

Although several other cocoa products from this manufacturer have similar outer packaging and uses, a careful look at the ingredients reveals that the ingredients are completely different, belonging to cheap compound cocoa products, so be careful when buying.

Photos of the Actual GCB 63% Dark Chocolate Buttons

Figure 3. Button chocolate.

Figure 3 above is an actual photo of the contents of GCB 63%. The button shape of each piece is its biggest feature, making it easy to simply weigh out an appropriate portion when baking, avoiding extra effort and waste, and is the greatest characteristic of food ingredients.

Product listings:

1. GCB 63% Dark Chocolate Tempered Buttons 1kg x 1 bag (for bread, cake, and Western pastry baking)
2. Natural Pure Cocoa Mass 1kg/bag Dark Chocolate Raw Block DIY Handmade Chocolate Baking Cake Dessert Ingredients