This article first appeared in our World Environment Day issue of My Green Pod Magazine, published 05 June 2024. Click here to subscribe to our digital edition and get each issue delivered straight to your inbox
Throughout its history, cacao has been revered as a sacred plant medicine, and often used in ceremonies by those looking to reach a higher state of awareness.
The name of the tree that produces the beans – Theobroma cacao – translates to ‘food of the gods’.
Today, cacao is making a comeback as a highly nutritious superfood and a plant medicine we can safely use to raise our own energy vibration and open up our hearts.
For Constandia (‘Dandy’) Christofi, founder of Dandy’s Raw Choc, the power of cacao lies in its ability to foster a reconnection to the Earth and a return to our authentic selves.
‘With cacao the ritualistic element is important because it takes us into the space between ordinary time, sometimes referred to as the dreamtime’, Dandy tells us. ‘In this transcendent space, we are able to open our hearts on an energetic level and connect to each other, to ourselves and to the Earth on a much deeper and extraordinary level.’
Dandy has over 20 years’ experience in wellbeing – spanning shamanic healing, feng shui, naturopathic nutrition and brain/heart coherence meditation – and has always been fascinated by the role of nutrition in wellbeing and self-healing.
‘I have personally found nutrition to be a key component of wellbeing and healing’, Dandy shares. ‘In my experience, taking care of the physical body with nutritional foods not only maintains an optimal level of health, but also helps us to heal disease.’
Dandy was inspired to create a range of raw chocolate after experiencing multiple intolerances to mainstream chocolate.
With Dandy’s Raw Choc she has combined her passions for chocolate, nutrition and holistic wellbeing while also bringing awareness of our need to reconnect with nature.
One of the many ways Dandy’s Raw Choc differs from mass-produced chocolate is that it is handmade in small batches and heated very gently at 38 degrees.
This maintains a raw state that keeps all of the nutritional value and delicate enzymes intact.
Dandy’s Raw Choc contains a combination of superfoods that alchemise its unique flavour, providing natural sweetness without refined sugar.
The gentle heating process creates a nutrient-dense food that satisfies the taste buds – and you don’t need much to feel satisfied.
‘Everything has an energetic vibration’, Dandy explains, ‘and a high vibrational food has pure, natural content that has not been denatured through intense processing. The benefits of high-vibrational foods are that our bodies recognise the purity instantly and take in all of the benefits – on all levels of our being.’
As reconnection to nature is such an important goal for Dandy’s Raw Chocolate, organic certification was key.
‘Being certified organic is really important to me as with organic certification, I am able to show my commitment to providing a truly organic product to the consumer’, Dandy says.
It was also important for the raw chocolate to be wrapped in home compostable packaging, as for Dandy this demonstrates one of the ways in which we are able to respect our bodies and the Earth at the same time and without compromise.
Dandy, a holistic therapist and founder of Silverdragon Wellbeing, believes this respect for the self is more important now than ever.
‘I feel that it’s currently harder for us to connect to our authentic selves’, Dandy shares. ‘We live in a digital world where our attention is constantly being taken to a screen. A disconnection from nature closes the heart centre where our authentic self resides.’
Dandy’s work is all about assisting others to return to their authentic selves through their own personal healing journey.
‘That journey may begin with a nutrition consultation, a feng shui analysis or a shamanic healing session – but the journey always leads to a return to the heart, to the place where our authentic self dwells’, she tells us.
For those who want to return to (and live) their authentic selves, Dandy advises spending some time in nature every day, and feeling gratitude for the beauty in our lives and for the simple things that are so precious to life.
‘Outside all the noise, you can find that place of stillness that resides within every single one of us’, Dandy says. ‘It is here that you will find the return to your authentic self. And of course, having some Dandy’s Raw Choc will open your heart vibration to help you move away from fear and into love, encouraging a reconnection to the sacred.’
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