Have you been told there are dozens of cacao benefits that can bring about physical, spiritual and emotional transformation? If so, you’re probably keen to discover what these benefits are and which are legitimate.
This article explains all you need to know about the spiritual and health benefits of cacao - according to science.
Ceremonial cacao is an ancient food that’s been used in Mayan and Aztec culture for centuries. And that’s because cacao in its pure form is full of powerful compounds that improve your body’s functioning, and protect against heart and brain conditions.
Cacao also acts on your brain to improve your mood, expand your perspective of yourself and help you better connect with the world around you.
The Peruvians, Olmecs, Mayans and Aztecs knew cacao was something special, which explains why its scientific name Theobroma cacao, translates as ‘the food of the gods’.
But they didn’t turn their cacao into a sweet treat.
No, they used cacao beans as a currency and in sacred rituals to make offerings to the gods.
Today, more and more nutritionists, herbalists, healers and spiritual seekers are turning to cacao for physical, emotional and spiritual support.
But can it really do all of this?
Let’s take a closer look at the benefits of raw cacao (from physical to spiritual) - and what science has to say about them.
Top cacao benefits
Depending on who you ask, the benefits of raw cacao range from boosting your brain’s heart to helping you feel more compassionate. Of course, some of these claims are based on fact, while others are myths based on skewed or misinterpreted information.
The best way to understand the health benefits of cacao is to look at the active ingredients in this ancient food.
Once you understand what each of these does in the body, it becomes infinitely easier to separate fact from fiction when it comes to cacao benefits.
What is ceremonial cacao?
Before we dive into the compounds behind cacao’s wide range of benefits, it’s important to get one thing clear: to reap the benefits mentioned in this article, you will need to use cacao in its solid form without anything added or taken away.
That is what is commonly known as ceremonial cacao. It’s a paste that looks like dark chocolate and it’s made by grinding the cacao bean down into a smooth liquid and then leaving it to set.
Active compounds in cacao
Theobromine
Theobromine is a stimulant that’s found in high amounts in cacao. Like caffeine, it is a potent energiser, but the stimulation it produces is gentler than caffeine and it lasts longer.
Unlike caffeine, which works mainly on the central nervous system (CNS; the brain and spinal cord) and aggressively activates CNS receptors, theobromine works more in the outer parts of the body - the arms, legs and organs.
Theobromine also triggers your heart to beat faster and your blood vessels to widen, allowing more blood to flow all over your body.
This is a key reason why many people feel warmer, activated, and like their hearts are opening when they drink large doses of cacao.
Finally, caffeine works quickly, but it also wears off quickly, leading to an energy crash. In contrast, theobromine takes about 15 to 20 minutes to kick in, but its energising effects last for 5 hours or more, and wear off gradually.
Studies, such as a 2021 US study published in the journal Circulation and involving almost 38,000 people, have found that theobromine can also:
- Reduce blood pressure
- Improve the health of your blood vessels
- Reduce ‘bad’ LDL cholesterol levels
- Increased ‘good’ HDL cholesterol levels
These findings suggest that cacao benefits due to theobromine include:
- Increased energy
- Steady energy with no crash
- Better heart health
- Lower blood pressure
Flavonols
Bite into a chunk of pure cacao paste and you’ll find it tastes bitter.
Very bitter.
That taste is down to one thing: polyphenols.
And like most things that don’t taste great, polyphenols are really good for your health.
Polyphenols are molecules that move around your body and absorb free radicals (cell-damaging unstable atoms) that enter everyone’s bodies from poor food and lifestyle choices. By reducing the action of free radicals, polyphenols may help prevent ageing and age-related degenerative conditions like Alzheimer’s.
Polyphenols also help to detoxify your body and bring it back into balance - acting most significantly in the liver to enhance its natural detoxifying abilities.
The specific type of polyphenols in cacao are called flavonols (e.g. quercetin and catechins). Not only do they help with liver function and cell protection, but they can reduce inflammation (by stopping the action of enzymes that encourage inflammation) and studies have also found they stimulate the production of new stem cells.
A 2010 University of California, San Francisco study found that participants who drank high-flavanol cacao had twice as many stem cells in their circulation compared with those people who drank a low-flavanol cacao drink.
Finally, some therapists and trauma specialists report that the detoxifying actions of the polyphenols in cacao aren’t limited to physical detox. It’s thought that cacao can help with emotional detox, specifically during trauma-release work.
These findings suggest that cacao benefits due to polyphenols include:
- Anti ageing
- Protection against degenerative conditions
- Liver action support
- Reduced inflammation
- Increased stem cell production
- Trauma release
Phenylethylamine (PEA)
If you’ve ever heard that chocolate or cacao contains the same molecule your body produces when you fall in love, it’s true.
Phenylethylamine is that molecule and it’s created when cacao beans are roasted.
PEA’s core benefit is that it improves your mood, making you feel happier, uplifted and gratified. It achieves this by stopping the reuptake of the feel-good chemicals dopamine and serotonin, therefore increasing your body’s levels of these natural chemicals.
Serotonin is known to help with making you feel happier, calmer and less anxious, while dopamine triggers feelings of reward and gratification.
Its actions may be more noticeable in people with naturally low levels of PEA, like those with ADHD.
These actions suggest that cacao benefits due to PEA include:
- Feeling happier and calmer
- Feeling gratification and reward
- Feeling more loving
N-acetyl ethanolamides (NAEAs)
It’s commonly said that cacao contains the ‘bliss’ molecule anandamide, and this is why it can make you feel euphoric and blissful in high doses.
But this isn’t strictly true.
The truth is that cacao contains three molecules known as n-acetyl ethanolamides (NAEAs) aka indirect cannabinoids. They work with your body’s natural endocannabinoid system to enhance the actions of anadamide, a type of endocannabinoid your body naturally makes in small amounts.
If you’re wondering what endocannabinoids are, they are chemical messengers that work on the same type of cannabinoid receptors as cannabis (specifically the THC in cannabis). And as such, they help produce the same pleasurable blissful feelings as cannabis.
This suggests that cacao benefits due to NAEAs include:
- Feeling euphoric and blissful
- Feeling uplifted
Tryptophan
Another powerful substance in cacao is the amino acid tryptophan. Its power lies in the way the body converts it into a molecule called 5-HTP (5-hydroxytryptophan), which is used to make the mood-boosting chemical serotonin. And serotonin is then used to make the relaxing sleep-inducer melatonin.
As a result, consuming cacao results in higher levels of serotonin, which can improve physical and emotional functioning in several ways:
- Calm anxiety
- Increase happiness and joy
- Reduce urges for impulsive behaviours
- Reduce heart rate, blood pressure and body temperature
- Improve your ability to cope with stress
- Promote calm and equanimity
Tryptamine
Tryptamine is a special compound in cacao. It’s made via a process called decarboxylation, which happens while cacao is still in its pod.
During decarboxylation, carbon dioxide molecules are lost from the tryptophan molecule, forming a new compound called tryptamine.
Tryptamine’s ‘magic’ happens when it undergoes a process called methylation to form DMT - the ‘god’ molecule.
And DMT is the psychoactive substance that’s found in many sacred plants that are used ceremonially e.g. ayahuasca brew and bufo. It causes short-lived but intense hallucinations… if taken in noticeable amounts.
It’s worth pointing out that the amount of tryptamine that’s converted to DMT in cacao is miniscule, so you won’t get any psychoactive effects from drinking cacao.
But its tryptamine content does produce some potentially mind-expanding effects if taken regularly over a long period of time.
That’s because tryptamine works on the 5HT2A receptor in the brain, triggering a pathway that research (like this 2018 review) has found to promote neuroplastic changes over time.
Neuroplastic changes (or neuroplasticity) refers to the way your brain can (under the right stimulus) change the structure of its nerves cells and the way these nerves communicate with each other.
When your nerve cells communicate in the same way, certain beliefs, behaviours and reactions to specific circumstances become ingrained within you.
But when new pathways develop, the ability to push beyond your self-imposed beliefs and boundaries may be triggered.
This suggests that through the action of tryptamine, cacao may help you form new perspectives (of yourself and the world), break limiting beliefs and start seeing and living your life in a more freeing way.
Cacao benefits from tryptamine:
- Breaking limiting beliefs
- Less fear
- Less mental rigidity (inability to change or try new things)
- Expanded perspectives of self and the world
Health benefits of cacao
When we recap the cacao benefits associated with the six compounds mentioned above, it’s clear that the benefits of cacao can be split into two groups: physical and spiritual/emotional benefits.
Physical benefits of raw cacao
- Increased energy
- Steady energy with no crash
- Better heart health
- Lower blood pressure
- Anti ageing
- Protection against degenerative conditions
- Liver action support
- Reduced inflammation
- Increased stem cell production
- Reduces heart rate and body temperature
Spiritual and emotional benefits of cacao
- Trauma release
- Feeling happier and calmer
- Feeling gratification and reward
- Feeling more loving
- Feeling euphoric and blissful
- Feeling uplifted
- Calms anxiety
- Increases happiness and joy
- Reduces urges for impulsive behaviours
- Improves your ability to cope with stress
- Promotes calm and equanimity
- Helps break limiting beliefs
- Reduces fear
- Reduces mental rigidity
- Expands perspective of self and the world
Benefits of raw cacao
If you’ve been exploring cacao closely, you may notice that some people call their cacao ‘raw’. While this may make you think it has extra health benefits, the reality is that there is a lack of clarity surrounding what makes cacao 'raw'.
Many people use the phrase to show that their cacao is made from unroasted cacao beans, while others use it when their cacao has not been exposed to temperatures above 118°F/48°C.
But the key problem with the idea of 'raw' cacao is that all cacao is exposed to temperatures above 118°F/48°C during a key stage of turning cacao fruit into cacao paste: fermentation.
During this process, cacao beans are scooped into wooden boxes (along with their pulp), covered and left to ferment for a week. During this time, heat is naturally produced and the temperature in the fermentation boxes can rise above 50°C - that’s higher than the definition of ‘raw’ cacao.
After fermentation, beans are laid out in the sun to dry.
This means that even unrosted beans are heat processed to some degree, which means that ‘raw; cacao is never truly raw.
But is unroasted cacao healthier than roasted cacao?
There isn’t much scientific evidence to suggest this is true. The six key compounds in cacao remain intact during roasting - in fact, phenylethylamine is only created when the beans are roasted, which suggests that cacao made from roasted beans may have more mood-boosting benefits than unroasted cacao.
The take-home message?
There's unlikely to be much difference in the health benefits of raw cacao and gently roasted cacao.
Want to experience the effects of ceremonial cacao for yourself?
Everyone’s experience with cacao is different, but for many it can be truly transformative.
If you’re feeling drawn to trying cacao for yourself, get started with our range of cacao elixirs.
They’re made from pure Peruvian ceremonial-grade cacao and hand blended with potent medicinal plant extracts to help you achieve a specific state of mind: boost intuition, feel happier, get grounded.
Oh and they’re so creamy and delicious.
This article was a complete guide to cacao benefits
