A new startup is fusing Ayurvedic herbs with decadent chocolate to help boost energy and reduce stress
The goodbye stress chocolate bar is infused with shankapushpi, lemon balm, brahmi, ginseng and L-Theanine to help combat acute effects of stress
For this writer, a slab chocolate has served as an effective, albeit temporary, antidote for bad mood and the pandemic-induced blah-ness. Turns out, fine cocoa, when mixed with the right ingredients, can not only make you happy, but healthy too.
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Food entrepreneurs Pranav Sharma and Kritik Thakur are makers of India’s first “functional” chocolate, Awsum. They claim they have turned to Ayurvedic principles, where potent medicinal herbs and blends are fused into decadent dark and milk chocolate to help people deal with modern-day lifestyle disorders. “If I’ve to describe it in simple words, I’d say it’s a chocolate with a function. It is made by combining indulgent chocolate with clinically researched ingredients and botanicals. These work synergistically to address sleep deprivation, day time fatigue and lethargy, stress and anxiety. We also have made a chocolate that helps strengthen and build the body’s immunity,” says Sharma. Like many entrepreneurial ideas, this one too, was born in the lockdown, and was incidentally a product of it.
Pranav Sharma and Kritik Thakur
“In the beginning, it was all fun and games, video calls with loved ones, workout regimes and cooking videos, but soon the doom and gloom started to kick in. Staring at screens all day, all night for work and for pleasure messed up the sleep cycle for most people. That in turn led to daytime fatigue and lethargy.” Although Ayurvedic concoctions became popular, a major challenge with the kadha was its preparation, usage, taste and storage, observes Sharma. As food entrepreneurs, they were able to see this difficulty in having little access to authentic Ayurvedic supplements. “That is when we started developing our thesis in two core areas: first, what problems we could solve, and second, what delivery mediums we could use.”
Chocolate was voted a clear winner. “It [chocolate] is a real whole food. As we researched, we found that there have been studies that proved a better assimilation of vitamins and minerals when paired with chocolate.” The products are available for sleep, daily energy, good bye stress and active immunity. For sleep, premium milk chocolate is blended with chamomile flower, passionflower, L-Theanine, while Daily Energy is made with premium dark chocolate that has green tea extracts, ashwagandha, ginseng, L-Theanine and natural caffeine. “It works as a perfect pick-me-up for people who are struggling with mid-day lethargy and daytime fatigue and helps restore energy in the body and boosts focus and concentration,” says Thakur.
Taste Test
Each square slab of chocolate comes with separate packaging and is colour coded and is priced at Rs 100. We tried the Daily Energy flavour on a particularly tiring day and it helped get us back into work mode. The Good Bye Stress chocolate put us in a calmer state. That said, remember to treat it as a supplement rather than an indulgence.
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