Chocolate is most commonly seen as a decadent, once-in-a-while type of treat without any inherent health benefits. When it comes to most forms of chocolate that are readily available, this perception is not inaccurate.
Most types of chocolate you can buy are filled with sugar and fat; while certainly delicious, it is not exactly good for you.
But not all chocolate is like this. In fact, its unprocessed form is known as cacao. It has been shown actually to have numerous benefits for one’s health.
Cacao has been consumed in various forms for hundreds of years, but it has only been relatively recently that the true extent of its health benefits has come to light.
This discovery is what inspired the founders of CacaoJoy to create their signature cacao mix, which we will be reviewing here.
Who Is CacaoJoy for?
CacaoJoy is for any individual who does not want to reconcile their love of chocolate with their desire to remain fit. While anyone can buy and consume it, the promotional material on the CacaoJoy website seems to be mostly oriented towards women.
However, anyone who wants a rich tasting yet low-calorie chocolate beverage or another treat will probably find CacaoJoy appealing, as long as you have the budget to buy it regularly.
CacaoJoy Review: Brand Overview
CacaoJoy was created by Eliza Raum, who, along with her husband Eric, is also the founder of Sempora.co, a website with a focus on health foods and the promotion of proper gut health. Sempora.co is responsible for distributing the actual CacaoJoy product.
As she explains on the CacaoJoy website, Eliza was prompted to create the product after years of eating regular chocolate and stressing about the weight she was gaining as a result.
Eventually, this led her and her husband to discover the existence of cacao as the progenitor of sweet chocolate, and more importantly, to discover the established health benefits of this substance.
With this knowledge, Eliza set out to create a product that was not only healthy but also tasty enough to enjoy and versatile enough to use in a number of culinary applications. CacaoJoy, as a company, prides itself on using primarily organic ingredients in their product.
CacaoJoy Pros & Cons
CacaoJoy is a relatively simple, focused product. There isn’t really a lot to it that one could describe as being positive or negative. Nonetheless, we will attempt to evaluate the benefits and drawbacks of CacaoJoy as thoroughly as possible:
Pros:
- It is very easy to eat – You do not need to do anything more to consume CacaoJoy other than mix a serving of it into some coffee or hot water.
- Versatile – CacaoJoy can be used as a cocoa powder substitute in a number of different recipes.
- Low-calorie – CacaoJoy contains only 30 calories per serving, which is great.
Cons:
- Only one container size available – CacaoJoy only comes in one container size, an 8.45 oz (240 g) container, which does not seem very large given the price.
- Very expensive – When purchasing CacaoJoy, you have the option to buy one container, three containers, or five. Even after applying a discount, the price of one container is still almost $54 USD (down from $80). Discounts are also applied to the other options, but even then, the three- and five-container options are still priced at $150 and $180, respectively. Also, there are some erroneous details concerning their prices; for some reason, the three-container package’s regular list price is lower than the “discounted” package.
- Questionable customer service – Looking through the website, one notices an absence of contact information to be found. No email address, no telephone number, not even a physical address. Even looking at the website for Sempora.co, the parent company of CacaoJoy, yields no useful contact information. One wonders if their customer service division even exists at all.
- Janky website – At first glance, the CacaoJoy website seems to be of mostly professional quality, however upon closer inspection, some things start to come apart. Multiple typos are present, along with unclickable buttons, underlined text that looks like a hyperlink but isn’t, an abundance of smiley faces and emojis, malfunctioning links to external sites that somehow manage to redirect themselves back to the CacaoJoy website, and a broken FAQ section that can’t even display all of the answers to the frequently asked questions.
CacaoJoy Ingredients
Each container of CacaoJoy contains 30 servings of cacao mix. One serving size is one tablespoon or 8 grams.
CacaoJoy contains a fairly short list of ingredients, all of which are natural:
- Organic MCT powder (300 mg/serving) – MCT stands for medium-chain triglycerides. MCTs are part of a group known as “healthy fats” that actually help fight obesity and promote healthy bacteria in the gut.
- Cacao powder and organic cacao powder (400 mg/serving combined) – Raw cacao powder is rich in polyphenols, which have anti-inflammatory properties as well as being beneficial to the body’s immune system.
- Acacia gum (100 mg/serving) – Acacia gum is used as a thickening agent in order to get the mix to the right consistency.
- Organic coconut milk (500 mg/serving) – Like MCT, the coconut milk has been added to the recipe as a “healthy fat.” Aside from the other benefits of healthy fats, the inclusion of coconut milk also gives CacaoJoy a richer flavor.
- Organic turmeric (70 mg/serving) – Turmeric is chock-full of the polyphenol known as curcumin, which like other polyphenols, is effective against inflammation. It is also an antioxidant and has been shown to be effective at managing arthritis and anxiety.
- Organic cinnamon (100 mg/serving) – Cinnamon has long been used in many recipes as a flavor enhancer, but it has also been shown to have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antidiabetic, and antimicrobial effects.
- Lion’s mane mushroom (50 mg/serving) – The lion’s mane mushroom (Hericium erinaceus) is a mushroom that demonstrated to be beneficial to the human brain and nervous system. This mushroom is classified as an “adaptogen,” a substance that helps brain cells deal with various kinds of stress.
- Sea salt (30 mg/serving) – The sea salt is included purely for small flavor enhancement.
CacaoJoy also contains vanilla flavoring and monk fruit extract, which both function as sugar-free sweeteners.
How Does CacaoJoy Work?
CacaoJoy is a very simple food product to consume. A scoop of CacaoJoy in a mug of hot water is enough to enjoy it, or you can add it to coffee or milk for a richer chocolate flavor.
On top of this, CacaoJoy has two cookbooks available with a combined total of 60 recipes for various desserts and treats that use CacaoJoy. The website does not make it clear how exactly one receives the cookbooks.
However, it claims they are “bonus content,” which would imply that they come free with your purchase of a container of CacaoJoy, but it does not explicitly state this anywhere on the website. Furthermore, the website fails to clarify whether customers will receive one book or both.
In addition, the website mentions a mysterious “Bonus #3” that customers may also receive. No indication is given about what this bonus is, other than a vague description from Eliza, which states that this particular bonus “has played a BIG role in keeping [her] healthy habits on track.”
According to the product creator, the difference between the CacaoJoy cacao mix and other cocoa powders is how the raw cacao is initially processed.
When most cacao is being processed into chocolate, the beans are roasted to the point where many of the active beneficial compounds are purged from it. If the beans are lightly roasted at a much lower heat, they can retain more of the compounds that benefit us upon consumption.
Because CacaoJoy contains no artificial additives or medicinal ingredients, it is safe to eat it as often as you wish. However, considering each container’s high price, one might want to use it sparingly and stretch out their supply as much as possible.
Benefits of Using CacaoJoy
According to the CacaoJoy website, consuming CacaoJoy regularly can have many benefits to one’s physical and mental health.
The product creators claim that consuming CacaoJoy as opposed to normal chocolate can actually help individuals lose weight, as well as achieve a better insulin response and experience less overall stress.
They also claim that CacaoJoy has potent aphrodisiac properties. While it is true that consuming raw cacao can increase the brain’s serotonin and dopamine levels, it seems to be a bit of a stretch that eating a spoonful of CacaoJoy will somehow increase your sex drive that much.
In addition, the product creators claim that consumption of CacaoJoy can lead to decreased levels of mental stress, although it is unclear if this is due to an active ingredient in the cacao mix or merely the product creator’s relief at having found a relatively healthy, fat-free chocolate substitute.
The way the promotional material comes across makes me feel as though the product creators found consuming CacaoJoy to be a supremely uplifting, life-changing experience.
I can certainly understand the excitement of discovering a new foodstuff that is both good-tasting and good for you and the joy of being able to lose weight after a series of unsuccessful attempts.
However, I do find it slightly hard to believe that a pricey chocolate substitute will have quite the same drastic positive impact as the product creators imply it will.
Side Effects
Since CacaoJoy is a non-narcotic and non-medicinal product, most people should not expect any side effects from consuming it. However, some ingredients in CacaoJoy are capable of causing allergic reactions in certain individuals.
While generally uncommon, there are individuals who are allergic to cinnamon, turmeric, and coconut, all of which are present in CacaoJoy.
In addition, overconsumption of turmeric can be detrimental to one’s health, although there is likely not enough turmeric in each container of CacaoJoy for this to be an issue.
Who Should Refrain from Using CacaoJoy?
As previously mentioned, CacaoJoy is non-narcotic and non-medicinal, so it is suitable for consumption for pretty much anyone at any given time. That said, this article also previously mentions that certain people may be allergic to some of the ingredients in CacaoJoy, such as cinnamon, turmeric, and coconut.
These allergies are rare but can potentially be severe, so consumers should be aware of what is in CacaoJoy if they have such an allergy or consult a physician beforehand if they are not sure about their allergic status.
It is worth noting as well that CacaoJoy has a strong dark chocolate taste with a “sharp” ending note, so if you are an individual who greatly prefers milk chocolate to dark chocolate, then the taste might not be for you.
Dosage & Starting Tips
CacaoJoy recommends a serving size of one tablespoon. Again, since there are no medicinal or narcotic ingredients in CacaoJoy, individuals will not run any risk of poisoning or overdosing upon overconsumption.
However, due to the small size of the container and the high price, we recommend that any customers pace themselves when consuming this product.
The website claims that each container is one month’s worth of cacao mix, but this is assuming that the consumer does not use more than one tablespoon of CacaoJoy at a time and does not consume CacaoJoy more than once a day.
CacaoJoy should not be used as a meal substitute. It does not contain enough nutrition to sustain a person on its own. Rather, it should be used as a supplement in conjunction with other healthy foods. Also, CacaoJoy should not be used in place of prescribed medication for anything.
Where to Buy CacaoJoy & Guarantees?
CacaoJoy is available for purchase via the CacaoJoy website and the Sempora.co website. The Sempora.co website supports direct payments and is able to accept payment via Shop Pay, Google Pay, or PayPal.
Interestingly, the price is different, depending on where you buy it from. It is listed as $54 on the CacaoJoy website (after a discount) and $60 on the Sempora.co website.
In addition, customers looking to purchase the product from the CacaoJoy website will have to deal with Clickbank. Clickbank is a third-party retailer that assists other companies with selling their products online.
Some customers might be put off by the lack of dedicated payment support for the website and question Clickbank’s veracity as a retailer; however, Clickbank has existed since 1998 and is a legitimate business.
CacaoJoy ships internationally and offers a 60-day money-back guarantee. They claim to offer full refunds for any unsatisfied customers; however, there is no visible way on the website to actually get in contact with customer support, so individuals who do wish to return a product may be out of luck.
Additionally, the website’s link to their shipping & returns information page is broken and merely redirects back to the homepage.
Conclusion: Final Opinion About CacaoJoy?
CacaoJoy is a product that promises a lot, but only questionably delivers. Certainly, there is some truth to the claim that CacaoJoy is a genuine health product; plenty of research has been done on the beneficial effects of this cacao mix’s various ingredients, and there is definitely nothing inherently harmful in any of its substances.
But in other areas, the value of this product seems somewhat dubious. The claims that consuming CacaoJoy will vastly increase your sex drive and help you lose weight with little to no extra physical activity seem rather far-fetched.
Any product that promises you the world without you having to put in some kind of actual effort should probably be viewed through the lens of skepticism.
Then there is also the many issues with the CacaoJoy site itself: the typos, the unprofessional feel of the writing, broken links that loop you back to the page you are already on, missing buttons, misleading underlines, a half-functioning FAQ section, and perhaps above all, the complete and total lack of any kind of contact details, information about customer service, and even information about the company itself.
On top of this, certain design choices on the website leave me with some wariness; the fact that the homepage contains two separate identical sections that both shove the product in your face and ask you to buy it just seems really desperate and frankly kind of shady.
Combine this with the exorbitantly high prices the company charges for its products, and it really starts to feel like the negatives outweigh the positives.
While the ingredients contained within seem, for the most part, to be good for you, I am still not sure the benefits are significant enough to justify charging $60 USD per container. After all, it’s basically just glorified cocoa powder.
In this writer’s opinion, it does not really seem worth it. If you can justify the price to yourself, then you may as well give this product a try if you feel so inclined.
But for most individuals, I think the high cost, the poor quality of the website, the company’s lack of transparency (be it intentional or accidental) and the not-entirely-proven nature of the product’s benefits may be a considerable turn-off.