Healthier Dipped Chocolates!

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     I love dipped chocolates.  I mean, I love to eat them and I enjoy making them because I know that I will get to eat them.  I have posted about making dipped chocolates before this,here and here.  But, eating fondant filled sugary chocolates is not healthy or good for the waistline.  So, how about a healthier alternative? 

     I recently read an article or two about cacao and its nutritional benefits. Since I love chocolate, finding healthy reasons to eat it is a plus!  Did you know that the difference between cocoa and cacao is that cocoa is heat processed, which destroys nutrients and cacao is cold pressed, preserving the nutriants.  Cacao is the way to go when it comes to finding nutritional value.  It is full of antioxidants, it can help control blood pressure, blood glucose levels and cholesterol levels.  And of course, everyone knows that chocolate is a mood lifter, duh! Cacao also has a lot of vitamins and minerals like magnesium, chromium, iron, zinc and more!  If you want to read more about the benefits of cacao, go to this link.
     Everyone knows about chocolate dipped strawberries, so why not dip them in a chocolate with a higher cacao content?  For today's chocolate dipping, I used dark chocolate that was atleast 53% cacao.  You can find it even higher, I just purchased the brand that was on sale! 
     Well, besides strawberries, there are a myriad of other fruits that you can dip as well.  Just think, you are getting the benefit of the fruit as well as the cacao.  It is a win-win situation! My family loves chocolate dipped orange sticks at Christmas time, so Madalynn suggested I just dip orange segments! They were delicious! 

Then, I saw an idea for dipped bananas in a magazine from my grocery store.  They suggested  layering them with a nut butter.  I thought that sounded so good! Here is what I did, hover over or click on the images for an explanation.

Slice the bananas and then spread on the nut butter. I used peanut butter on some and Nutella on others.

Freeze the layered banana rounds until firm, and then dip into the dark chocolate. Then, return to the freezer to firm up.

I think that they look just as delicious as a sugary filled treat. They taste just as good, too! Any kind of nut butter would be great, like almond or cashew!

     All of the sources I have checked out say that cacao does have many health benefits, but you do not need large amounts of it to see the results.  Just a Tablespoon or so per day is enough to gain the healthy benefits.  That means that you don't need to chow down on too many of these little beauties to get some good results, so restrain yourself if you can!  But, with the candy filled holidays coming, these fruity, cacao dipped treats are a great foil to all of the sweets!  They look so pretty on the tray! 

Maybe I should make a tray like this for the baby showers!

     (Click here for a great baby shower idea!)