A dry organic breakfast blend with cacao and carob — chocolate-tasting, certified gluten-free, and with no added sugar. Add water or plant milk, stir, eat.
Why carob alongside cacao, and not just cacao
This is the interesting decision in the blend, and it is a good one.
Cacao is bitter. On its own, in a breakfast with no added sugar, it would be austere — which is why most chocolate breakfast cereals are 20–30% sugar. Carob is naturally sweet, around half sugar by weight in the pod itself, with a flavour of toffee, malt and dried fruit.
Putting the two together means the carob does the sweetening that sugar would otherwise have to do, while the cacao supplies the depth and the chocolate character. It is a genuine formulation choice rather than a marketing one.
There is a second benefit: carob contains no caffeine and no theobromine, so the stimulant load of the blend comes only from the cacao portion rather than from the whole of it — which matters at breakfast for a child.
What the panel says
Per 100 g: 20.1 g of fibre, 142 mg of magnesium, 3.17 mg of iron, 9.1 g of protein and 11.1 g of sugars — all naturally occurring.
Twenty grams of fibre per 100 g is a genuinely high figure; a food needs 6 g to be called high in fibre. Under European rules this blend is high in fibre, high in magnesium (38% of the reference intake per 100 g) and a source of iron.
Those thresholds bring their authorised claims with them: magnesium contributes to a reduction of tiredness and fatigue, to normal energy-yielding metabolism, to normal muscle and nervous system function, to normal psychological function and to the maintenance of normal bones; iron contributes to normal oxygen transport, normal cognitive function and the reduction of tiredness and fatigue.
We are not going to say anything beyond that, because nothing beyond that is authorised — and nothing beyond it is needed.
A note on the fibre
Twenty grams per 100 g is a lot. If your diet is not already high in fibre, or if this is for a young child, start with a smaller portion and let the gut adjust over a week or so. Drink water with it. Going straight to a full bowl of a very high-fibre food is how people conclude a perfectly good product disagrees with them.
How to make it
Roughly 50 g — check the pack — with about 150 ml of liquid. Milk of some kind rather than water: the fat carries the cacao, and with water it tastes thin.
Let it stand three to five minutes so the ground seeds and fruit absorb the liquid. Eaten immediately it is gritty; given five minutes it thickens properly.
Overnight in the fridge is better again. It becomes thick and mousse-like, and the chocolate flavour deepens considerably. Add banana, raspberries, a spoon of nut butter or a few chopped hazelnuts.
It is not sweet like a chocolate cereal. It tastes of real cacao with carob rounding the edges — closer to a dark chocolate porridge than to a sugary breakfast. Children used to sweetened cereals may need a sliced banana in it for the first few mornings.
Practical notes
The cacao means it contains a small amount of theobromine and caffeine. It is a breakfast, so that is unremarkable — but do not make it the last thing anyone eats before bed, and keep it away from dogs, for whom theobromine is toxic.
Allergen note
Certified gluten-free, vegan and organic. Check the pack for the full ingredient list if anyone at your table has a nut or seed allergy.
Storage
Cool, dry and airtight; use within a few months of opening.
Iswari
Smart Organic
Iswari
Iswari
