Ele Chocolates Probiotic Bites: A Chocolate A Day Is Good!
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The Nibble doesn’t typically cover health and wellness foods. But we were treated to a jar of Probiotic Bites from Ele Chocolates and we liked them so much, that after our initial supply ran low we became a monthly subscriber. After several months, they’ve become such a part of our morning ritual that they’re our Top Pick Of The Week. With Mother’s Day coming up, we’re gifting bottles to several of our friends. What if you could start the day with a piece of chocolate that’s delicious, healthful, and probiotic, yet contributes just 62 calories along with your morning cup of coffee or tea? (It can be consumed without any beverage at all.) Designed as a functional supplement, the delicious flavor comes from single origin, organic, Fair Trade certified, 70% cacao dark chocolate. The innovative product is made by Ele Chocolates, a partnership between of one of our favorite artisan chocolate lines, The Cordial Cherry (another Nibble Top Pick Of The Week), and Synbiotic Health, a biotech company specializing in probiotics. The ingredients are simple: cacao, coconut oil, and billions of friendly microorganisms from specific probiotic strains. The magic comes from how they’re put together. The Bites: > How do Probiotic Bites help your system? > Why two particular strains are used. Elsewhere on The Nibble: > Probiotics, prebiotics, and synbiotics. While these statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Probiotic Bites are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent illness or disease. Ele says that taking one Probiotic Bite a day can help you maintain a healthy and balanced digestive and immune system. Their tests have shown that the Probiotic Bites: |
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 [5] We take a moment each morning to enjoy the peace and tranquility of our Probiotic Bite. Seriously! WHY THESE PARTICULAR PROBIOTIC STRAINS ARE USED Standard probiotics, like the “live” ones found in some yogurts, often die off in the stomach. These two strains were selected using in-vivo selectio” (iVS) and in-vitro enrichment (iVE), techniques used to find the “tough” bacteria that can actually reach the gut alive and perform functional tasks like producing vitamins or calming inflammation. These two specific strains of probiotic bacteria were developed by Synbiotic Health. Bifidobacterium adolescentis, iVS-1®, is naturally occurring in the human gut and is chosen for its “ecological fitness,” meaning it’s particularly good at surviving the journey through the digestive system and colonizing the gut. We don’t give healthcare advice. We also don’t use probiotic supplements—we don’t need them. So we can say, as an avocational user: We’re in it for the chocolate. It’s a happy and healthy way to start the day. To us, Probiotic Bites are a treat. If you do take probiotic supplements, consult with your healthcare provider for advice. One consideration might be the cost. With a 10% discount for monthly subscribers, a 30-day supply is $45 a month. Is it worth $1.50 a day—or is it even possible for many budgets—to enjoy a piece of good-for-you chocolate? We can only say that it makes us happy to wake up each morning and head to the kitchen to make coffee and enjoy our Probiotic Bite. > The Bites are sold on the company website as well as on Amazon. While there are rave reviews, i.e. “this solved my problem,” on both sites, we were surprised to see a couple of lower reviews on Amazon because the purchasers didn’t like the taste. Frankly, we love the taste…but as we all know, chacun à son goût, to each his own taste. “Ele” (pronounced EL-uh) is short for “Elemental,” a name that reflects the company’s mission to support health at its “elemental core.” The name signals that the product is a fundamental building block for gut health, rather than just a standard confection. The company was founded in 2022 as a collaboration between Melissa Stephens, the artisanal chocolatier of The Cordial Cherry, her daughter, Hannah Humeniuk, and biotech company Synbiotic Health. The CEO of Synbiotic, a customer of The Cordial Cherry, reached out to propose combining their chocolate-making expertise with his company’s probiotic strains. Synbiotic‡ Health is a biotechnology company that specializes in the research and development of “ecologically advanced” probiotics and synbiotics. Unlike many supplement companies that simply market existing strains, Synbiotic Health is a research firm that discovers and licenses its own proprietary bacterial strains. The company is considered highly respected within the scientific and nutraceutical communities due to their academic pedigree and rigorous approach to clinical validation. The company was founded in 2017 by four prominent microbiome researchers, world-renowned experts in gut ecology and fermentation. Their lead strain, iVS-1®, is backed by peer-reviewed human clinical trials published in high-impact journals like Microbiome and Applied and Environmental Microbiology. †Inulin (FOS) (25 mg) is sourced from organic Jerusalem artichokes. Xylooligosaccharides (XOS) (15 mg) are sourced from organic cane sugar. ‡More terms to know: Synbiotic is the “1+1=3” of gut health. It’s the combination of a probiotic (the live bacteria) and a prebiotic (the fiber “food” that helps those bacteria grow). CFU (Colony Forming Units) is the measure of how many billions of live, active bacteria are in each chocolate bite. In-Vivo Selection (IVS) is is the process Synbiotic Health uses to pick bacteria that have been proven to survive inside a living body, rather than just in a petri dish. CHECK OUT WHAT’S HAPPENING ON OUR HOME PAGE, THENIBBLE.COM.
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