Love Street Living Foods

  Out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania comes Love Street Living Foods, who sells organic, raw, and vegan food products. No fine print here beneath the stated values; Love Street means serious business. No genetically modified ingredients, no refined sugars or flour, no additives or pesticides, and 100% unprocessed, just to name a few. I’m not one to actively seek out foods this intense, shall we say, but I’m happy enough when they come my way as I do believe they have a lot of health issues straight.

  The four products I was sent to try are the Super Fudge bar, Maple Crystal bar, and Chocolate and Chocolate Coconut Spreads. To start off, I like their look: the plain colors are fitting for a raw/vegan atmosphere. The tree, with its implications of life, I like; the tiny people picking cacao pods (at least so I deem them to be) add a slight whimsy to the “healthy” idea of it all.

  I dug into the Super Fudge bar first, a 70% cacao sweetened with agave nectar. Three other ingredients to note are coconut oil, maca, cayenne, and lucuma powder. If you’re wondering about the maca and lucuma, Love Street also sells these powders on their own; I imagine they’re added as a part of the “superfood” ideal. This being my first true raw chocolate experience (the other was more an energy bar than chocolate bar), I found the raw texture not so different as I’d expected. It doesn’t last so long and has substance similar to a ganache, but that was about it for me. And it tastes so delicious. The aroma it releases when you tear open the package is like when you split open a fruit — fresh, rich, alive.

  It tastes like chocolate in its most basic form. Fudgy in a natural way, with an earthy flavor probably influenced by those added powders. Just a little bit is very satisfying. This chocolate makes me happy.

  the Maple Crystal is also 70%, with Ecuadorian criollo cacao and Vermont maple sugar in place of the agave syrup. This one has a slightly darker color, and true to the name, little crystals of maple sugar. That makes it more of a nibbling chocolate. It’s also a slightly sweeter bar, less earthy. Still delicious, and quite strong.

  Then there are the spreads. I had to remind myself I was supposed to be reviewing them, but who can resist being caught up by two jars of chocolate nectar? We’re back to the agave sweetener for them — the only differences in ingredients between the two are coconut oil in the Coconut Spread and crystal salt in the Chocolate. Their texture is like what we all dream of: flowing and smooth chocolate unhindered by useless filler ingredients. So sinfully good. Stick them in the refrigerator if you so desire and they’ll become less liquid.

  Chocolate and agave syrup are the flavors of the plain spread, like some superior interpretation of chocolate syrup. Though I have mixed feelings on coconut (I usually just say I don’t like it), I fear the Coconut Spread is changing my mind. There is no way to draw back at a taste this fresh. The spreads are great on bread and seem perfect for dipping fruit in; now I wish I had some ice cream to pour them on. Not that it would be a hardship to simply eat them straight out of the jar.

  All in all, I’m impressed. Quality ingredients, quality values, and quality taste.

Read the original review here!