Cocoa Butter

Just like other skin-loving fats — such as raw shea butter and coconut oil — cocoa butter is great for naturally healing dry, sensitive skin. And in terms of your diet, as explained more below, cocoa butter benefits include providing healthy fatty acids that support the immune system, cardiovascular system, cognitive function and appetite control.

Cocoa butter (sometimes called theobroma oil) is a natural, meltable oil that’s extracted from the cocoa bean. Cocoa beans are seeds from the Theobroma cacao L. plant, a member of the Sterculiaceae plant family.

These beans are used to make “one of the most important and widespread functional foods in human history”: chocolate. Historians believe that cocoa beans have been grown for more than 3,000 years and were prized among ancient populations, including the Mayan and Aztec civilizations.

Can you eat cocoa butter? Yes! Real cocoa butter is completely edible and has a faint taste and smell similar to dark chocolate.  The beans from the theobroma cacao L. plant are a high antioxidant food, since they contain a significant amount of polyphenol and flavonoid antioxidants. In fact, cocoa beans themselves have been shown to be one of the greatest suppliers of polyphenols in the human diet.

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. Because it has a mild fragrance, a smooth texture (due to its “emollient” properties) and is ultra-hydrating, cocoa products are very popular ingredients in all sorts of commercial beauty products — including skin lotions, lip glosses, lip balms, hair conditioners and other beauty ointments.

Is cacao butter the same as cocoa butter? NOT,  Cocoa butter products vary depending on how the beans are processed and heated. The spelling “cacao” usually means that the beans are unroasted (or “raw”).

Nutrition Facts

Cocoa butter is high in fat, mostly saturated fat, just like coconut oil. The amount of saturated fat it contains (as opposed to unsaturated fat) is between 57 percent to 64 percent of the total fat content, depending on the exact kind. Among the different types of fatty acids 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)

Types

Here’s how different types compare:

  • To make cocoa butter, cocoa beans are first fermented then roasted. At this point, the cocoa “butter” (which isn’t actually the kind of butter made from any type of milk at all) is able to be separated from the rest of the beans, leaving behind solids that are used for other purposes like making cocoa powder.
  • While cocoa butter does contain some polyphenols and other antioxidants, it doesn’t supply as much as dried cocoa powder does.
  • Many brands deodorize and de-colorize cocoa butter so the product is a yellow-beige color and smells pretty neutral, not much like cocoa liquor or chocolate.
  • To make chocolate, cocoa butter is then further pressed to release “chocolate liquor,” which holds most of the chocolate taste and smell.
  • 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. Similarly, raw cacao powder is made by cold-pressing unroasted cocoa beans. To be considered raw, temperatures usually don’t exceed about 115 F.