For more than a decade now, I have been dedicated to using food as a means to help me achieve optimal health and fitness levels. During the early years of this process, I found myself continually bumping up against the harsh reality that our modern food landscape was severely hindering my progress toward achieving my health and fitness goals, in addition to degrading the life energy of our planet.

Chocolate 2.0 was born out of a sincere desire to achieve optimal health through food. The genesis of the products in our line were motivated primarily by three driving factors:

1. A strong distrust of most packaged food items on grocery store shelves
2. A desire to get closer to the source of the ingredients inside even the “healthiest” recipes
3. A desire to be able to enjoy the classic comfort foods of childhood completely guilt free, knowing that each bite is contributing to optimal health

It all started in my kitchen back in 2017 with a blender and some macadamia nuts. Over the preceding months I found that my peanut butter consumption was getting out of control. I could eat as much as two entire jars in one sitting! I considered myself to be a healthy eater, and up to that point in my life, peanut butter was in the category of a health food.

However, as my quest for health knowledge deepened, I became more intimately aware of the woes of modern agriculture. Practices like monocropping, the heavy use of pesticides and herbicides, and the modification of plant genes are widespread and are wreaking havoc on ecosystems, degrading soil, and causing a loss of biodiversity. I also learned that peanut farming generally embodies most of these practices. The peanut industry’s relentless dedication to optimizing for high output and low cost at every turn means that there is nearly a 100% chance that the peanuts you are eating were genetically modified, grown in nutrient-depleted soil, and sprayed heavily with pesticides. Unless they are organic. And even if they were grown organically, there is a very good chance they are laden with mold thanks to our supply chain.

On top of all this, the oil in peanuts mostly consist of omega-6 fatty acids. These are essential to human health but are already consumed in abundance in our modern diet thanks to the heavy use of processed seed oils (also added to most commercial peanut butters). Overconsumption of omega-6 fats relative to omega-3s generally has an inflammatory effect in the body. Additionally, their high unsaturated fat content makes them highly susceptible to oxidative damage during shipping and storage, leaving the fats rancid by the time they make it into your mouth and GI tract, further contributing to systemic inflammation in the body. Needless to say, I needed to find a healthier alternative.

As I uncovered all of these truths, I became increasingly skeptical of everything I thought I knew about health and food. During this time I was also advancing my career in the CPG (consumer packaged goods) industry. My day job involved mining consumption data for insights to help food manufacturers and retailers reach more customers. This is to say that I was generally privvy to the consumption patterns in America. I began to hatch a theory that many of the metabolic issues and chronic health conditions experienced in today’s society were a result of lack of true nutrition.

What do I mean when I say true nutrition?

Most of the packaged items on the shelves of grocery stores are not food. At least not food that your body recognizes. At some distant point, far upstream in the supply chain, they were food (i.e. corn, wheat, apples, sugar cane, etc.). But after harvest they were processed so heavily that almost none of the naturally occurring nutrients remained. These highly processed foods are then often combined with a bunch of gums, stabilizers, and other food additives and fortified with synthetic vitamins to make up for all the nutrients lost during processing. The result is a food-like item (Apple Jacks) which is so incredibly far from its original natural form that the human body has no idea how to process it. But it certainly tries to, and the result is a disrupted, inefficient metabolism and nutrient deficiencies. This generally leads to weight gain, gut issues, mood issues, and a whole host of other chronic and acute symptoms in the body. What’s worse is that many children are eating this packaged garbage for the first meal of their day. Every day.

It all started in my kitchen back in 2017 with a blender and some macadamia nuts. Over the preceding months I found that my peanut butter consumption was getting out of control. I could eat as much as two entire jars in one sitting! I considered myself to be a healthy eater, and up to that point in my life, peanut butter was in the category of a health food.

However, as my quest for health knowledge deepened, I became more intimately aware of the woes of modern agriculture. Practices like monocropping, the heavy use of pesticides and herbicides, and the modification of plant genes are widespread and are wreaking havoc on ecosystems, degrading soil, and causing a loss of biodiversity. I also learned that peanut farming generally embodies most of these practices. The peanut industry’s relentless dedication to optimizing for high output and low cost at every turn means that there is nearly a 100% chance that the peanuts you are eating were genetically modified, grown in nutrient-depleted soil, and sprayed heavily with pesticides. Unless they are organic. And even if they were grown organically, there is a very good chance they are laden with mold thanks to our supply chain.

On top of all this, the oil in peanuts mostly consist of omega-6 fatty acids. These are essential to human health but are already consumed in abundance in our modern diet thanks to the heavy use of processed seed oils (also added to most commercial peanut butters). Overconsumption of omega-6 fats relative to omega-3s generally has an inflammatory effect in the body. Additionally, their high unsaturated fat content makes them highly susceptible to oxidative damage during shipping and storage, leaving the fats rancid by the time they make it into your mouth and GI tract, further contributing to systemic inflammation in the body. Needless to say, I needed to find a healthier alternative.

As I uncovered all of these truths, I became increasingly skeptical of everything I thought I knew about health and food. During this time I was also advancing my career in the CPG (consumer packaged goods) industry. My day job involved mining consumption data for insights to help food manufacturers and retailers reach more customers. This is to say that I was generally privvy to the consumption patterns in America. I began to hatch a theory that many of the metabolic issues and chronic health conditions experienced in today’s society were a result of lack of true nutrition.

What do I mean when I say true nutrition?

Most of the packaged items on the shelves of grocery stores are not food. At least not food that your body recognizes. At some distant point, far upstream in the supply chain, they were food (i.e. corn, wheat, apples, sugar cane, etc.). But after harvest they were processed so heavily that almost none of the naturally occurring nutrients remained. These highly processed foods are then often combined with a bunch of gums, stabilizers, and other food additives and fortified with synthetic vitamins to make up for all the nutrients lost during processing. The result is a food-like item (Apple Jacks) which is so incredibly far from its original natural form that the human body has no idea how to process it. But it certainly tries to, and the result is a disrupted, inefficient metabolism and nutrient deficiencies. This generally leads to weight gain, gut issues, mood issues, and a whole host of other chronic and acute symptoms in the body. What’s worse is that many children are eating this packaged garbage for the first meal of their day. Every day.