Permission to Eat More Chocolate with Jonathon Pantalis founder of Living Ratio

Today on Midlife Conversations, we've got death by chocolate. Just kidding. It's not death by chocolate. It's health by chocolate. I've got Jonathan Pentales with Living Ratio. He's the founder of Living Ratio, and he. If you're watching us on video, I don't stop eating these chocolate truffles because I've learned they're good for me. Thank you, Jonathan, for creating these.

Of course. Of course. You got the Dog Wednesday box, too. That's one of my favorite boxes. We do.

Yeah. I'm eating a munching on the Valentine's Day box. So I want to talk about chocolate specifically because you've got such a unique story. And I. Women, that's the big thing they say when they come onto my fat loss plans. Or they say, can I still eat chocolate? And I say, yes, you can still eat chocolate. There's so many health benefits to chocolate. And especially I think there's things that we actually need from chocolate. I consider it a superfood. But there's a lot of things that go wrong with chocolate, too. So we're going to be breaking this down for you, like what to look for, what not to. What goes wrong with chocolate? Like, what's the sweetener being used? Is there mold in your chocolate? Is there heavy metals in your chocolate? Is there too much sugar in your chocolate? All the things. What should we be looking for? Thank you so much for being here today, Jonathan.

Of course, Course. Yeah. Thanks for having me.

So, first of all, let's. Let's back up. And you got mad at me when I called you Willy Wonka once, so we won't do that. But I always have to give you a hard time about it now. So. So how does. How the heck did you get into being a chocolate creator? Like, where did this even come from? I'm sure you didn't grow up going, I'm creating chocolate and healthy chocolate at that.

I will say I always love chocolate. That I will say I used anyone not.

Does anyone. Does anyone not love chocolate?

Only when you get a chocolate company and you start talking to, like, a bunch of people, you realize that there's like one out of every, like, 100 people.

Okay.

Chocolate.

But, yeah, it's not like most people like it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I would always, like, melt chocolate bars and then put them in the freezer. And, like, that was. That was like something. I just. I don't know. I always did that as a kid. I just. I was just obsessed with melting it down.

And was there a Kind you used as a kid. Like, what was the kind?

Of course?

Oh, just like I heard it's not even like real chocolate.

I mean, later maybe in like high school, I would buy like, you know, dark chocolate bar and like melt it down and. But I was always into it. Like I, I was fascinated with tempering. So I literally just buy chocolate bars, melt them, and then temper them by hand. Tempering is a process where you make chocolate smoother and shinier. Every chocolate bar you buy in the store is tempered, unless it melts and then it gets all streaky and weird. And chalk that's temporary is the process of making chocolate smooth and tasty. Basically.

Got it. So you did this as a kid. Okay. But you didn't know you were going to form a chocolate company?

No, no. Originally I was going to open a pie shop. It's a really random story. I'll tell it in the shortest way I can. This is actually probably the first time I'm like telling it.

Okay. I never knew this story, so I'm excited to hear this.

But like, I'll at least give some pre context that like I, I did really bad in school. I was always like, I guess smart, but did very bad in school. Struggled a lot with like my energy and my focus. So once I dropped out of college, I had this intense motivation to prove everyone wrong, that I could still make it and do something.

Sure.

I got wrapped up in some interesting stuff in the early part of my life. You know, I was in the cannabis business when it was the wild West. Literally the first time ever sharing that on a podcast. But I. Something that's, you know, a key part of my story. Like I was hanging out with criminals and drug dealers and it was a very interesting. That's very interesting.

Wait until I booked him on the podcast to share this piece of information. I'm just kidding. Keep going.

I told you. It's a crazy story. But, but anyways, I was making cannabis chocolates in my kitchen.

Okay.

And I was.

Jonathan's naughty kitchen.

Yeah, basically. Basically. And I, you know, I had a roommate. I was in Santa Rosa, California and I, My landlord at the time basically asked me to move out if she could pay me to move out. It wasn't because of that, what I was doing, but she just wanted to sell the unit. And I walk across the street to this guy who is like this real estate developer guy, suit and tie. For some reason I just wanted. It was like my ego as a 19 year old that like just wanted to prove something to someone like he didn't want to talk to me or give me the time of day, but he was just like, you know, you gotta. You gotta wait. You gotta go talk to the leasing lady. I don't handle that. But I was like, what's up with the commercial units up there? And I promise this story is very worth it. But he's like, well, what do you do? And I'm like, I have a food business. I do catering and chocolate. I didn't.

So you were making this up just to ask to look like you were asking about the commercial units. It was an ego thing.

Yes. Yes. 100 was. I just was like, I can't let this guy not take me seriously. Right. And so I. He's like, oh, what do you do? He got very excited. He's like. He shows me around. He shows me the units, and he's like, well, I'd love to try your stuff. Like, I'd love to try your chocolate. And I'm like. I'm like, great. I think it was a Thursday or something. And so I'm like, great, I'll bring you some on Monday. So I went to San Francisco and I bought chocolate from this chocolate factory that used to be there. They used to make craft chocolate there. And I'm like, buying, like, you know, five pounds of chocolate. And they're like, what do you do with all this chocolate? I'm like, well, I have a chocolate company. And they're like, oh, well, do you have a wholesale account? And I'm like, what's that? You know, like, I didn't know what I was doing at all. But long story short, I make the chocolate. I figure it out. It's one of my first batches of, like, really nice chocolate. And I give it. It's not healthy chocolate. Sugary. It's organic for the most part, but it says sugar, corn syrup, whatever caramel. And I made. I made these brown butter truffles with little bits of. Of praline in there. And then I made a banana caramel truffle with dark chocolate shell. Wow.

All to impress this leasing agent.

Yes. Yes. And basically, his wife calls me a few days later, and she's like, we've been all over the world. We've traveled to Europe. We've traveled, like, to the finest places. And this is the best chocolate we've ever had. Whoa. I was. She was so impressed that she called me to tell me, like, she was really, really impressed. Well, fast forward. The guy helped me out. He let. He helped me build out a space. And you Know, I didn't really have, you know, all the money up front to do it, but he helped me build out the space. He helped me do everything and gave me a lease with no credit, no proof of income, like nothing. And then halfway through the process, things are getting weird. He's communication, trying to stop. Last time I ever saw him, I ran into him in a parking lot with his attorney and he was like, we might just have to do it without permits. You know, we might just have to finish it without permits. And I had put everything I had into making this work. It was going to be a pie and chocolate shop because I like making pie too. Thank goodness that didn't work out. But long story short, the very next day, him, his attorney and two bank executives get arrested with like 30 something felonies. And he dropped. Once he bails out, he drives himself off a cliff and.

Oh no. Oh my gosh.

Yeah, yeah. And so for, for about two, three years, this I think was about 2013, 2014. Two or three years, things were in limbo where nobody knew who owned the building. And actually later on.

And you had put all your money and everything you had into it.

Everything I had into it, Yep. And it was, it was a very like, confusing time. Do I proceed? Do I keep working on this? This is the only chance at having a space to do the things I wanted to do. But also my health was deteriorating. The place that I was living was infested with mold, infested with black mold. And I was going, I mean, I was, I was already struggling with my health before. Yeah, things were taking a really bad turn for the worse. So simultaneously to all this stuff happening, all this confusion, not knowing what's going to happen with the space. I also was having some serious health challenges. So that's when I started to go deeper into my health journey. It was probably about 2012 when I really, really got into it. I had my first Aha's. Maybe in like 2010 was when I first got into supplements and herbs a little bit. I just decided I didn't want to do any of the pharmaceutical stuff. I don't know what it was. I think maybe as a kid taking ADD pills. I didn't like taking any D pills totally. I would always, I'd always hide them like in the, in the planter. And like, not one day my mom found them and that's hysterical. But, but any.

Anyway, your mom's giving you Ritalin and you're hiding it in the plants.

Yeah. That's when she realized, like, oh, man, maybe I should. Maybe he really didn't.

Like the plants got real perky.

Yeah, they were fake plants, so.

Oh.

But anyways, yeah, so I. It put me deeper on that journey. Right. I had to figure it out. And for whatever reason, like, I was very into self experimentation to supplements and going to natural doctors, whatever I could. I just, I wanted to figure it out myself. And it took a very long time. Part of it was moving out of the house with the mold. But I think a plus of living somewhere with the mold is I. I really learned how to heal my body even under the worst environment, because I didn't initially know it was mold. So I learned how to feel good. But I was taking like handfuls of supplements, like totally loads of supplements to feel good. And it just really wasn't a way to live, you know, so this is wild.

Like you. So you deep down knew you wanted to create something. You liked creating things. You liked pie, you like chocolate. You, because of an ego situation, you ended up making up that you had a chocolate business, which kind of propelled you into doing something.

Yep.

And then you have this health challenge. So then how does that tie back to chocolate? The health challenge?

Yeah. So I love chocolate. So like I, I found out about like cacao and raw chocolate. Like, I always was obsessed with chocolate. But it was like I realized, like, wait, like once I got really deep in my journey, like, I realized that any small amount of sugar, at least at that time, now I can handle a little bit of sugar because I've done a lot of work myself. But like at that time, even the smallest amount of sugar would throw me into like just very inflamed, like very lightheaded. I need to, I need to fall asleep. Like I was very tired. Exhaust. So I wanted to make a chocolate that I could eat all the time because chocolate did give me energy. But that crash after it was really, really bad. So I wanted to create something that was, that I could eat every day and feel good from. You know, that was, that was really a simple thing. And there are a lot, there are many, many iterations. I would experiment with, you know, chocolate paste and chocolate liqueur. And then one day I. I had this like giant bag of cacao beans. And I sat there all morning and hand peeled them.

Oh, wow.

And I, I bought this like 300 melanger. It's like a little stone grinder, can hold 10 pounds. I sat there and hand peeled like 5 pounds of cacao beans. And then I broke them into nibs and ground them into this Chocolate. I wish I still had some of that batch to. But get lost somewhere in the factory. But, but anyways, I stone ground that and that was kind of like the first recipe. Like that was the 70 chocolate that we, that we sell today is, is more or less that recipe. It hasn't changed that much.

So the thing that's. Okay, so I'm gonna get into sort of like, help us understand. I, I sort of. I think I sort of know, but let's. I want to help. I know listeners don't know what are the actual benefits of chocolate because people put it as this junk food or it's a candy bar, but there's actually a lot of health benefits to cacao and to cocoa. Like, and so let's get into that. Let's talk about that first. And then I'm gonna talk about like, what you did, how you like, made this a superfood.

Yeah, yeah, totally. So, I mean, chocolate, it's pretty well known chocolate's high in magnesium. And chocolate is also one of the highest antioxidant foods. It's higher than blueberries. It's a very, very high antioxidant food. It also has a bunch of very interesting compound neurotransmitter benefiting compounds like phenethylamine and theobromine. Both of those are actually, are the same class of compounds as caffeine, but they have like, phenythelamine is in and out. So you eat chocolate, you feel good. I mean, it goes in and out of your system within, you know, really minutes.

Is this why we crave it when you' you're like PMSing or you're sad or like it's. It's like your body's asking for that to help heal yourself.

Yeah, chocolate provides theobromine and oh, it also has an anandamide in there too. So it's like all these compounds that are, that create bliss. All the bliss molecules are in, are in chocolate. So it's fascinating. It's actually very fascinating. And it's not something that, you know, you. It's subtle, but it's also not so subtle. You know, there's a, there's a natural attraction of people to chocolate. It's just been around for forever, you know, and, you know, only in the last 130 years has it or less maybe like a hundred years has it even been accessible. Like, you know, it used to be a. Either something that, you know, if you lived in South America, you could get it, or if you were wealthy, you could get it. But it was not it was considered a, a wealthy person's food everywhere. Besides where it's, you know, where it comes.

So what goes wrong with chocolate? Because like, if you look at it at its source, it's super healthy for you. So is it because of everything being added to it or what, what happens in the, in this process? Because, and then it gets very confusing in your store. You're like, do I get 95 or 85 or 75? Like how do you, what it goes wrong there? And what, what like, and why do these companies like just completely destroy it with all this junk? It's like. And I would imagine it's like basically erasing all the benefits of it when they do that.

Yeah, it is. And chocolate's a very processed food. I'll just say that like most chocolate bars that you buy in the store, almost all of them are very processed. I guess I'll start from the beginning. You know, one thing, one, one thing I'll add, you know, just on the note of dark chocolate versus light chocolate. The percentage of chocolate does not mean it's a different type of chocolate. A lot of people think that like, oh, dark chocolate's better. The chocolate in there is more or less the same.

Okay.

Whatever else is in there besides the chocolate. So if it's 70%, maybe it's 30 sugar and 70 cacao. But it doesn't mean that it's like a different type of chocolate than a 99%.

Got it. So all of a sudden it becomes 30. It's milk chocolate basis, basically. But if it's 70 or higher, it's considered dark chocolate.

Exactly. Yeah. I think it's under like 55. It starts to get milk chocolate or something like that. And I don't know the exact number on it because we don't use dairy in our chocolate. But it's something, something like that you. Anyways, chocolate's actually a fermented food. So the, the beginning stage of chocolate is the, is the, the nibs are, or the beans rather have this sweet pulp on the outside of them.

Okay.

So it's sun dried and then fermented for like about three days. And that fermentation is actually where the bitterness is actually eliminated because it's like this intense tanginess. But it goes because it has that.

White gooey stuff on it. Right. Like I've had that, I had that in Costa Rica and I had that in Dominican Republic. You open it up and it's like, you know, it's like that white creamy gel.

Yeah. And if you've eaten the pods inside, before they're fermented, they're very tangy. Like, they almost burn your taste buds off. Yeah, yeah. It's very intense. So that fermentation process makes. It actually is what helps develop the flavor. Of course, on smaller scale, you can control it. On a large scale, maybe the fermentation doesn't go right. Maybe it goes a little too long. Maybe it doesn't dry fast enough and mold takes over. That's when you kind of run into that issue of mold in the chocolate. If fermentation is done improperly and the larger the manufacturing, the more likely it is generally okay.

So when you look at, like, traditional chocolate bars, is there a lot of mold in them? Like, if you were to pick up candy bars, is there mold in those?

I would say that the majority of it's going to be in your craft chocolate. That's not like, you know, I would say yes, but it's very hard to say which one is which. I would say it's probably like 50% or something like that. I couldn't give a real number.

50% pretty. That's a lot. That means most people that have had.

You're rolling the dice because it's like. I. I actually don't. I can't say exact, but, like, you're rolling the dice because, like, any larger the company, the more farms, the more variations you're dealing with. Right. Like, your things are getting blended in larger and larger.

I have a really dumb question. I'm gonna ask it anyway, but I just. It just popped up to me, so I'm gonna ask it. Why is it okay to eat, like, blue cheese, which is mold, but not okay to eat, like, chocolate with mold?

That's actually a really good question. I was gonna touch on that, and I think I touched on that when I was talking to Laura the other day. Some of the mold is just penicillin mold. It's just the same type of mold as blue cheese. And it probably isn't so bad. But, I mean, I think that some people. I'm not the expert on this, but I know the people that have mold sensitivities shouldn't be eating any live anything.

So even. Even you shouldn't be eating blue cheese either, because it's going to create a problem there.

Yeah. Yeah. I think some people have that much of a sensitivity. I don't know that I do. I know I have. I definitely have black mold sensitivity, but I think it. I think it just depends on your. On your degree of sensitivity. But, like, yeah, definitely. I Can actually taste it. It's probably the most common mold in chocolate is the penicillin type mold, the blue cheese mold. I can taste it. There are chocolate companies that I really love that. That source their chocolate from all over the world, and I just enjoy trying different origins. I can taste if it.

If mold took over, what's it taste like?

I have a one. I'm one of those people that have a very, very intense palette. I can. Or advanced palette. I can taste a lot of things. But to me, I get subtle notes of blue cheese. Literally.

Really?

I know what that penicillin mold tastes like. Yeah.

Interesting. So you. That you try to stay away from that.

I do, and I don't like taste, so. Yeah. Okay. So we've got batches. In our early days when we weren't, you know, perfect with our sourcing, we got batches that had that in there. And it was just. It's just very apparent. And what happens is, is you can. It's. It is possible on the large scale, like these craft producers don't do as much processing, but on the large scale, more heat, more oxidation. Oxid chocolate is oxidized.

Okay.

As part of the process. Most. Most companies do what is called conching, which is literally just exposing the chocolate to air and pumping as much oxidation into the chocolate, and that mutes out the bitter flavors. We don't really do that because the chocolate that we source is already fermented properly. So we're literally just grinding it into this smooth, luscious paste, you know, that we don't have.

So if you have chocolate that's fermented properly, maybe another dumb question, but do you get the benefits of fermented food then from when you eat that?

Not really, because the drying process gets rid of the bacteria.

So you're not getting. So it's not like the same as if you're eating pickled stuff and you're getting the ferment bacteria. Okay.

Yeah. It's similar to, like, I. I think it would be more like wine or something like that. Right. Because with that, it's like it goes from, like, acetic acid bacteria, and then the other bacteria take over and it creates ethanol.

Okay.

The ethanol kills every. Eventually just. It all destroys itself, you know, if there's enough sugars in there. And that's kind of what happens to it.

But we.

So.

But we have to watch out for mold and chocolate because you're saying not all of it is the okay, mold. It could be mold that's wreaking havoc on your health and if you already have mold in your system, this could be creating a bigger problem. And, and then what about you mentioned earlier that heavy metals are also can be really apparent in a lot of chocolates?

Very much. Very much. It's a tricky one too, because some of the like, like we used to use this biodynamic chocolate, and then, like, I don't know, every time I ate it, my skin would break out. I get pimples, like right here.

Whoa.

And then we got it tested and we looked at some of their, their reports, the company's reports, and it was one of the highest in lead really. And it was like the most naturally produced chocolate. It was just about the. The soil had a lot of lead in it, so we just, we couldn't use it anymore. You know, one, it was affecting me. And two, you know, we don't want to sell stuff that has high levels of metals in there.

This is like, this is crazy because there's so many little. It makes you be afraid to eat sometimes. Like, what the heck are we supposed to eat if you, you don't know where things are coming from?

And it's so tricky too, because we don't test our vegetables. We don't test like almonds. You know, like, we don't really. That's actually a really weird thing I think about all the time.

Peanut butter. Think about the amount of aflatoxin and peanut butter. People don't test that.

Yeah, yeah, there's. There's so much of that. So I don't know, like, it's, it's one of those things where it's like we're, we're certainly being exposed to stuff all the time, just breathing or being exposed to heavy metal. So it's a big question mark, like, how much to get worried about it depending. I mean, I think the, the important thing is like, are you healthy? Are you doing okay? I mean, like, I certainly eat chocolate from time to time just to try other people's stuff. Like, I'm very open about this. I love trying other people's chocolate. You know, sometimes, you know, a grocery store or something. I don't have a chocolate bars. I'm like, well, someone sees me. Oh, well, like, I just, I do love chocolate. You know, I just want to.

Yeah, yeah.

I want to make the best. So I can't, I can't not try other people's stuff because. Yeah.

So. And then let's. Okay, what about sweeteners and chocolate? Because obviously we know, like high fructose corns, they are bad. You don't want to have like the, the junk in there. But. And then even if you get a natural chocolate bar, like it could have a ton of sugar, you tend to in, I know like yours, you tend to either lean towards stevia or you'll use erythritol. Why did you pick dose specifically?

Yeah, so stevia is been proven to be safe like in many, many, many studies and so much use. And there, you know, stevia has come a long way in the processing and the harvesting. It used to be like the, the over processed stevias tasted better but now like the very gently processed stevia now that the harvesting has been perfected. Stevia is similar to basil. Like you, you pick stevia at the wrong time and it can taste really bad and have a really off putting aftertaste. But if you pick it at the right time, it's going to be a totally different flavor. Like when basil flowers, it just has a whole different yeast. So stevia is very similar to that. But yeah, we like stevia for that reason. It's natural, it comes from a plant. It's not like chemically processed. I like things that are, that are as close to nature as possible. We also use monk fruit in a lot of our chocolate too. And monk fruit is one that, you know, I love so, so much.

Once that's my favorite of anything. If I were to pick something to.

Use, it is the best. It is absolutely the best. And there will probably be a time in the next year where almost everything we do is monk fruit. That's very likely that we'll transition to all monk fruit in less stevia. Just because monk fruit is almost nobody has a problem with it. Right.

And then what about erythritol? Because that one can be hard on people's guts.

That is one that I like to talk about because there was a few studies recently that made erythritol sound bad. And I, this is where I'm at. We're a small enough company where if we were to find out that something wasn't good, we would change it right away because we don't like, we're not in the business of harming people. We're in the business of giving people a healthy option that allows them to eat chocolate and enjoy themselves and feel good about it. So if, if there was a better one, like I looked at allulose, we originally used xylitol for a very short period of time. But xylitol is an intense chemical process and it's very harmful to people's guts because, I mean, it kills bacteria. It kills bacteria in the mouth. It's going to mess up bacteria in the gut. I don't tolerate xylitol well at all. But erythritol is a natural metabolite in the body. It's naturally made in the body. It's naturally found in tons of different fruits. Now, there were some interesting studies. The most recent one that was demonizing it was related to heart health. And they were saying that people that had higher levels of erythritol in the blood, they were more likely to have heart condition. But, you know, erythritol is actually, in some research, a cardiovascular antioxidant, and it's been shown to potentially have antioxidant properties. So is it possible that the body is actually increasing the erythritol levels as a. Somewhere, like cholesterol? Right. Cholesterol's there, but it's not the problem. We used to think it was the problem, but now we know it's not, you know, elevated. Chester can be bad, but it's not the whole picture. Right. So that's. That's similar to erythritol, I think. I don't think that. And the other thing is, it's not really processed in the blood. It's processed more in the urinary tract. Not really. Doesn't really go into the gut too much. It's. It's very easily processed by the body. Obviously, with anything like that, like, don't eat unnatural amounts. But with our chocolate, like, you're eating, like, in that box of truffles that you have, I mean, it's less than, like. I mean, each truffle has less than a. You know, less than 2 grams of erythritol.

Like a tiny, tiny bit. Yeah.

That whole box, you know, like your popular Whole Foods chocolate. Won't name names. Popular Whole Foods chocolate bars, that's like a. A third of what would be in one bar, you know.

Right, right.

Consuming so much less than our chocolate. So, like, I think there's a. There's a dosage thing there, too. Like, we're not. We're not like, putting tons of it in there.

So what?

And it's sort of organic.

The first time I tried your chocolate, it was. I don't know what the flavor it was because you do, like, a different monthly. He does this really cool thing where every month it's a different. A bunch of flavors. Like, this month, I happen to love it because it has. I've got rose, raspberry Strawberry, hazelnut and cherry almond butter, which is like. I like all the fruity things. So that's like just my. My dream. But sometimes you have like. I remember the first time I ever tried it, it was told it was mushroom chocolate. Like, what do you mean, mushroom chocolate? Where did that come from? Why do people call your chocolate mushroom chocolate?

Must have been the mushroom collection.

Did you have mushrooms in it? Is that what it was? Yeah.

I mean, in January we brought it back. You know, just every once in a while we'll bring back a popular box. But we have a mushroom truffle collection where we have, I think, like cordyceps. We have four different mushrooms, four different flavors. We have lion's mane with macadamia bits. We had cordyceps with almond butter and cinnamon. We had like a Rishi dark chocolate and then a Chaga Cab.

Got it. So you took the benefits of mushrooms, like the superfood part of mushrooms, and you combined it with chocolate. Got it. Didn't taste like mushrooms. It was just.

That's actually something I'm very obsessed with, is, like finding ways to make herbs that would generally not taste good. Taste.

Yeah.

Good. Because otherwise it's harder to eat them. Like the lion's name one, I don't like. I love the taste of Chaga. And I think one of our most popular products as of late is our Chaga Cappuccino 20 piece box. It actually is our most popular truffle, like, few months and just most repeat purchases, everything. Right. And that one, it actually uses the flavor of Chaga, but Chaga has kind of almost like a coffee smoky, really good flavor.

Right.

Whereas the other mushrooms don't taste so good. So we gotta do other stuff to make it taste good.

So when you. So you're what. What Jonathan does. And this is why I had to have him on here and interview him, because I just. I've never heard somebody know so much about chocolate and the benefits of it. What he does is he found a way to take something that's like a weakness to all of us. Chocolate, at least most of us truffles. Like, I used to go buy, like Ses candy or Godiva chocolate, which is not the healthiest and. But I would. It's like that same idea, but he takes these decadent truffles, but it's all good for us. There's like nothing in there that's bad for us. There's no regular sugar, there's no dairy. There's no. There's like. Literally, you don't put anything in there that is. Has made what people demonize chocolate around.

Yeah, yeah. Even the color. So everything's hand decorated right in the truffle apple collection.

Oh, that's why. Yeah. If you guys are on video, you see, like, these are the pink. Look at this.

So we just use fruit. Use, like raspberry, cranberries, things like that to color them. There's no. There's no, like, fake colors in there at all.

Yeah, no, it's really cool. Yeah, this is cool. What. What do I need to not. What have I not asked you about chocolate? Jonathan, we need to know, like, what are. How is this connect? Because let's tell you, most of my listeners here, we're midlife, where, you know, things are changing. We got the perimenopause, you got the menopause, got hormones, shifting the mood, focus, all that. Tell us that chocolate can help us with this. We want to hear that. Is it true or is that wishful thinking?

Well, I mean, all the things I listed before, like the magnesium, things like that. I mean, everyone can use more magnesium in their diet. We were talking about magnesium before we started. Magnesium is powerful and nutrient dense. Chocolate, like ours has more magnesium. We have a lot of beneficial healthy fats that support hormones in our chocolate. We use, like, coconut oil. It's a good source of saturated fat. So there's certainly a lot of good things. But I think the number one thing. I mean, this is sort of cheesy to say this, but the number one thing is that you can have chocolate again and not feel bad about it and let me know if you agree. But you can have one or two truffles, and you're very satiated. You're very.

Three or four.

You don't. You don't feel like you need.

No, you do feel one or two. But when you like them more than I think you like it. I get the delivery of the box every month and I. Yeah, it's. They're good. No, but in truth, I just. Because I want to, not because they don't. What. What I like about your chocolate so much is there doesn't create that insulin response where you're craving and you can't stop. So that is true because they. There is no added sugar. It doesn't create that. So you. You really can have one or two and you're fine, so.

Totally, totally.

Yeah. I'm, like, waiting to wrap up so I can eat more chocolate because I can't eat while I'm recording. I'm just kidding. It's so good, though. Jon, this is awesome. So I'll have to have you back on. You're. You're just so. You have so much knowledge when it comes to this. You all. His company is Living Ratio. Living Ratio. I'll link it up in the show notes too. But if you use coupon. Natalie, Jill, you'll get a little savings or something special that he does and then you'll. You can see all the stuff that we recommend. He also has a. So it's. I'm obsessed with the truffles. That. That's my favorite thing. But he also has a drink that shot the cacao drink.

Yeah.

So like you're about to say, that'd.

Be actually a really good one to talk about because that one is like.

Tastes like chocolate.

Yeah, it tastes like. How would you describe it? Like, the way I always describe it is like, you ever go to like the, the hot chocolate dispenser, like a hospital or like the John Cook or something like that? I. I had to figure out that flavor without any additives. Like, the label is clean. There's like six or seven ingredients in there. We use this really special vanilla from this farm. It's a family farm. They've owned it for multiple generations in Madagascar. Just the best. Like, that's like the secret. Like, I'll never tell anyone like what that is, but it's just like the best vanilla in the world. And then we use really good quality chocolate, of course. And yeah, we, we have ashwagandha, reishi mushroom and cordyceps mushroom. The crazy thing is this blend has more herbs by like concentration than any other. I swear. Like, even these ones that taste like garbage, like bitter, like these really superfood tasting drinks, it actually has more active ingredients in it than those do. A thousand milligrams of ashwagandha and like 600mg of mushrooms per serving. And it does. You don't taste any herbal taste whatsoever. I mean.

No, you don't. It just tastes like hot chocolate. Yeah. No, it's awesome.

Yeah. And of course, ashwagandha, especially, like, you know, just to speak to your audience in, in midlife. Ashwagandha is a very beneficial one for cortisol, for balancing hormones. There's numerous studies on ashwagandha. I mean, that we. We use the most research and most effective ashwagandha extractor in the world, KSM 66. And wow, you know, everything we put in that formula is there for a reason. The cordyceps increases blood flow. It helps just, in my opinion, with the Assimilation of everything else. And then the reishi just helps with calming and relaxing. And it's just everything in there is really wonderful. So that's actually one of my favorite things. You know, I made that for myself and was never intended to make it into a product just to help my nervous system after losing a home in a fire. And I literally just made it for myself and then I just got obsessed with it. It took me about probably like five, six months to formulate it. Usually I formulate things in a very quickly. That one I spent a lot of up.

Make sure you have the right stuff in there.

Yeah. Just figure out the right ingredients. Then we found the right ingredients, but they weren't organic and so. And so on and so forth. You know, all that purity is very important to me.

Well, Jonathan, I love what you do because we all love chocolate and we've been looking all for healthy chocolate. And this is. This is right on. And you actually have me looking like, I don't. If I go to a store and I'm buying chocolate, I'm really paying attention to, like, what's in it now because I've learned so much from you. I'll link his company in the show notes. It's living ratio and you can use coupon. Natalie, Jill, his stuff is amazing. Try the travel box. Try the drink. The drink is awesome. But regardless if you try his stuff or not, I just. You. It sounds like you have permission to eat more chocolate. Everyone. You have permission to eat more chocolate.

100%. Yeah.

Thanks, Jonathan.

Yeah. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.