A Healthier Kind of Craft Chocolate

This past year has been rough on Dalloway Chocolate, both emotionally and physically. But if someone offered for us to go back and skip over the year, I don’t think we would. If Kelechi and I have learned anything in life, in our combined 69 years, it’s that amazing and beautiful things can come from challenges.

This time last year, we were on vacation in Mexico City when I got sick. If we’d been home, I would have hightailed it to the ER. Instead, I carried on, it’s what I’m good at, it’s what I’m used to. We climbed pyramids, ate so many tacos, and fell in love with a beautiful city.

When we got home, I went to the doctor and discovered that my lifelong battle with endometriosis was about to add another twist to its saga: I needed surgery, again.

Working full time and running a small business — which really equates to a second full-time job — is not a great recipe for self-care and healing. In fact, it’s the exact opposite.

Over the past year, I have neglected much and powered through even more. I have leaned on my partner (my now fiancée) in ways I will never be able to thank her properly for. She has been my rock.

This past year I also confronted a scary new normal: chronic pain. Post my fourth surgery I was told that help manage my pain, the everyday pain and the monthly, that I needed to cut back on my sugar. As we all know by now, sugar is not your body’s friend. Terrible for some and less so for others, sugar for many, especially those who are ill or living with chronic pain, too much sugar can be unhealthy, inflammatory and thus for many, like myself, painful.

As chocolate makers, this was problematic for both of us. What direction does a chocolate company head in when one of its co-founders is told to cut the sweet stuff?

With much encouragement from Kelechi, we set out on a mission to find a healthier sugar alternative. One that was delicious, nutritious and wouldn’t mess with the healthy bacteria in your gut. What we came up with was date “Sugar.”

What came from this quest is a healthier bar of chocolate, one filled with not only the powerful antioxidant-rich benefits of cacao, but also they added nutritional benefits of the powerful little fruit the date.

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