Warm Cacao and Tahini Elixir with Orange and Flaxseed
A warm drink with no added sugar, 0.77 mg of copper, 43 mg of vitamin C and 6.5 g of fibre per serving. Cacao, tahini, orange and flaxseed, macros calculated from USDA data.
This is the smallest recipe in the batch — 204 kcal per serving — and the one most at risk of being sold on a single word we will not use: collagen. What this elixir does is supply dietary copper and vitamin C, two cofactors in the body's own collagen synthesis, plus cacao as a source of polyphenols. It is not a substitute for, or an oral version of, a topical copper peptide, and it does not claim to be. Its 6.9 g of sugar come from the orange; there is no added sugar, honey or sweetener.
Ingredients
6 items- 400 ml unsweetened almond milk
- 16 g unsweetened cocoa powder (2 heaped tablespoons)
- 24 g tahini (sesame paste) with no added sugar
- 12 g unflavoured, unsweetened powdered gelatin
- 150 g orange, juice only
- 10 g ground flaxseed
Nutritional Information (per serving)
Step-by-Step Instructions
Hydrate the gelatin
Sprinkle the gelatin over 60 ml of cold water and leave for 5 minutes, until it forms a lump-free paste.
Heat without boiling
Almond milk over gentle heat until it steams. Never to the boil: gelatin loses its setting power and the cacao turns bitter.
Dissolve
Add the hydrated gelatin and stir until it has completely disappeared.
Bring in the cacao and tahini
Whisk in the cacao and tahini until the mixture is smooth.
Orange, off the heat
Off the heat, add the orange juice and ground flaxseed and serve warm. Vitamin C does not go through heat: it enters at the end.
Functional Health Synergy
- 0.77 mg of copper per serving: 0.30 mg from cacao and 0.19 mg from tahini, among others
- 43 mg of vitamin C per serving, from orange juice added off the heat
- 6.5 g of fibre per serving: 2.96 g from cacao, 1.65 g from orange and 1.37 g from flaxseed
- 6 g of gelatin per serving bring 5.1 g of protein, with 1.1 g of glycine and 0.7 g of proline
- 6.9 g of sugar per serving, with no added sugar: it is the orange's sugar
- 94 mg of magnesium per serving, from the cacao and flaxseed
Individual results may vary. Claims regarding weight loss and metabolic improvements depend on each patient's individual physiological response, their nutrition plan, and medical evaluation.
Discover more about this recipe
Unsweetened cocoa powder
Eight grams per serving bring 0.30 mg of copper, 1.57 g of protein and 2.96 g of fibre. It is the elixir's source of polyphenols, but precision matters: meta-analyses describe improvements in endothelial function at doses around 500 to 700 mg of flavanols, which are reached with concentrates. Eight grams of domestic cocoa powder does not get there, and the actual amount depends on processing: we have not measured it.
Tahini
Twelve grams bring 2.09 g of protein, 0.19 mg of copper and 6.36 g of fat. It gives the drink body and replaces any industrial cream. Its sugar is not in the USDA entry we used, so it counts as zero in the table.
Unflavoured powdered gelatin
It is a food, not a supplement, which is why it is here instead of a hydrolysed collagen. Six grams per serving bring 5.1 g of protein whose profile is dominated by glycine (1.1 g) and proline (0.7 g), both measured in the USDA entry.
Orange
Seventy-five grams of juice per serving bring 43 mg of vitamin C, more than half the daily reference, and 6.72 g of sugar. It goes in off the heat so the vitamin is not lost.