How We Created the Perfect Keto Chocolate

I often get the question: "How did you start Funky Fat Foods"? Followed by "How did you come up with the idea for the perfect keto chocolate".

The short answer is a personal need to solve a problem I had, a lot of research and an enormous amount of patience to get me through times where I thought it is near impossible to create what I had in my mind. 

A lot of our customers and followers ask us very often about the ingredients of the chocolate, too. That's what makes it so special and unique. 

So we decided to answer these questions. Sharing the process and what our chocolate is made from is important for us as well because complete transparency is one of our core values. 

This article is a summary of our Part 1 and Part 2 video for those who are feeling up to a funky read. 

How did you get the idea to start Funky Fat Foods? 

In 2017, when I graduated from Business School I had the opportunity to travel to South America. My mom is from Brazil so I have a lot of love for Brazil and other countries in South America. During that trip, we visited many cacao farms and I felt so intrigued about the health benefits of cacao. 

Back then I was reading a lot about living a healthy lifestyle. This has been an interest of mine all my life. During that time I found a lot of research from doctors in the US who were talking about the keto diet. 

I was always so afraid of eating fats because I was always the girl who was counting calories, thinking that avocado would make me fat, so I would eat only half an avocado. I had an unhealthy relationship with eating healthy fats. Nobody told me the truth about fats. 

Around that time, I read “Fat For Fuel” and all of this was so eye-opening to me. I’ve always reacted better to low carb diets but back then I was eating a lot of fruit, a lot of starchy vegetables so I felt bloated often, I was always cold, I didn’t have a lot of energy. 

I made the switch to keto from one day to the other, completely cold-turkey. In a short period of time, I felt so much energy and mental clarity. Because I was still so intrigued by cacao and wanted to do something with it, from visiting all these cacao farms, I came up with the idea to create something that is high-fat and that fits in perfectly with a keto diet. 

After a lot of research and looking at different chocolate brands to see if they offer low-carb products, I noticed the ones that did had a lot of fillers in their ingredients lists. I really wanted to create something that is low-carb, has the benefits of cacao and is not artificial chocolate. So what I had in mind was: less than 4 ingredients, a totally natural product.  

My next step was to start going to many chocolate factories and fairs to learn more about the whole process and how this can become a reality. That's how Funky Fat Foods was born. If you're interested more in the business side of things, you can read this article I wrote for Starter Story. 

How did you decide on the ingredients for the perfect keto chocolate? 

I was adding MCT oil to my bulletproof coffee and shakes so I knew MCT should be in the chocolate because it makes it extra fat. It’s a great energy source, it’s amazing for mental clarity and it gives you this fullness that lasts long. 

I ran into the issue of finding the right manufacturer at first, however. Finding someone to help me produce sugar-free, lactose-free, gluten-free chocolate and that has added MCTs (when nobody knew what that was in Europe), has no fillers, and no soy was almost impossible. I kept on hearing “no, no, no” from different factories because they either liked the idea but was not possible to do for them or because the quantity I wanted to produce it in was too small. 

Eventually, I found the right partner.  

You can read the Funky Fat Foods story here but basically, after launching the MVP, I got to gain a lot of useful feedback. Having our own site at the time and talking to customers was so crucial given how small of an operation we were and how little budget I had. Gathering feedback has been something that has been a practice that stayed with us throughout to this day and has helped us improve the product and include only the best possible ingredients out there. 

Could you tell us more about the MCTs in the chocolate? 

MCT is a crucial ingredient of our chocolate. As I mentioned, before I actually had the idea for it, I was already heavily reading about the keto lifestyle and was obsessed with MCT oil. I was putting it on everything - from salads to coffee. That’s how I had the idea to put it in the chocolate because even though cocoa butter is already very fatty, MCT can add extra health benefits to the chocolate. 

I’m no WiIlly Wonka though, I just had a good hunch as to what ingredients would go well together. 

 

What was your motivation to create the chocolate bars? 

A strong reason for me to make this was the fact that I wanted to make a functional product. A lot of people are normally hesitant to eat chocolate when they are living a healthy lifestyle and rightfully so - it has a lot of ingredients in it that would compromise one’s health.

That’s why it was so important for me to create a chocolate bar that fits into that lifestyle and doesn’t hinder people’s diets, on the contrary, I wanted it to complement their food regimes. It satisfies and kills sugar cravings, without actually having sugar in it. I wanted to be done with the taboo of “I cannot eat chocolate because of my diet”. 

Since this is also such a functional product, it is created for people who have a busy, active lifestyle and need a snack on-the-go. You can have the chocolate before workouts or as a refuelling snack after a fast and a workout. Or when you are at work and need something healthy to get you through dinner. Or as a delicious ending to your dinner. 

It helps you get extra energy with its only-healthy ingredients. 

 

What makes Funky Fat Foods different?

If you compare it to a chocolate bar with 70% cacao, you are still putting 30% sugar in your body. You still get all the side effects of sugar. 

Our chocolate doesn’t spike your insulin (what sugar does) because it doesn’t contain ingredients that do that. It has only 4 organic ingredients that make up the chocolate and take care of your sugar cravings to keeps you on track with your diet. We keep it real with our ingredients so you can live your best possible life.

 

Other blogs you might enjoy:

• 5 Tips for Buying True Keto-friendly Packaged Foods
• Keto Choco Bites