COCOA BUTTER
Delicious and nutritious, Theobroma oil (cocoa butter) is fabulous on and in the body.
Cocoa butter is a pale-yellow, edible vegetable fat extracted from the cocoa bean. Cocoa beans are native to parts of Central and South America and have been harvested to make natural skin moisturizers in places like Mesoamerica and the Caribbean for centuries. Cocoa butter is also used to make chocolate, ointments, toiletries and pharmaceuticals.
Cocoa butter has a cocoa flavour and aroma and its best-known attribute is its melting point, which is just below human body temperature. Because it has a mild fragrance, a smooth texture (due to its “emollient” properties) and is ultra-hydrating, cocoa butter is a very popular ingredient today around the world in all sorts of commercial beauty products.
Another amazing attribute of cocoa butter is because cocoa beans are a high anti-oxidant food, since they contain a significant amount of polyphenol and flavanoid antioxidants. In fact, cocoa beans themselves have been shown to be one of the greatest suppliers of polyphenols in our diets. Some of these antioxidants remain in cocoa butter even after it’s separated from the beans, which means it’s beneficial for improving immunity, lowering inflammation and improving heart health.
Cocoa butter is a healthy fat, mostly saturated just like coconut oil. The amount of saturated fat it contains (as opposed to unsaturated) is between 57 percent to 64 percent of the total fat content, depending on the exact kind. Among the different types of fatty acids in coconut butter are:
stearic acid (about 24 percent to 37 percent of total fat content)
palmitic acid (24 percent to 30 percent)
myristic acid (0 percent to 4 percent)
arachidic acid (around 1 percent)
lauric acid (only about 0 percent to 1 percent)
Raw cocoa butter, sometimes labeled as “pure cocoa butter,” isn’t heated to very high temperatures during manufacturing processes, which means it usually retains more of the healthy fats and other compounds found naturally in cocoa beans.
Health benefits:
• Anti-ageing: : wrinkles, scars, high in antioxidants (oleic, palmitic and stearic acids)
• Increases hair quality: moisturiser, dandruff, hair follicle beds, hair loss, baldness
• Skin health: moisture barrier for environmental, internal, and external irritants
• Anti-inflammatory: heart, skin – psoriasis, eczema, rashes