Hu Vegan & Paleo Chocolate Is Our New Comfort Food Obsession

Be warned that when you try this chocolate, you will forever be ruined for all other chocolate.

By Carly Milne Mar 26, 2020 12:00 PMTags
HU Chocolate, CollagesE! Illustration

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We have a notorious sweet tooth, but we also have dietary restrictions. No dairy. No refined sugar. No junky ingredients that cause gastrointestinal distress. Which pretty much cuts out all the good chocolate...or so we thought, until we met Hu Chocolate.

Hu, which comes from the phrase "Food For Humans," created their chocolate offerings with a philosophy in mind: namely, that food can be delicious with simple, high-quality ingredients that help people get back to living, eating and thriving like humans. All of their offerings are vegan, paleo, gluten-free, non-GMO and Kosher, with no refined sugar, cane sugar or sugar alcohols, among other questionable additives. And every item features an ingredient list you can actually read and understand.

Take their Simple Dark Chocolate, for example. It's made of organic fair-trade cacao, unrefined organic coconut sugar, organic fair-trade cocoa butter... and that's it.

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Our obsession began innocently enough, when we discovered Hu Chocolate at our local grocery store and picked up the Almond Butter + Puffed Quinoa Dark Chocolate bar. Then we went back the following week and bought it again. Then it became a weekend ritual to have one for breakfast each Saturday morning while we grocery shopped, letting the harmony of flavors, the bitter and the sweet, melt against our tongue as we filled our cart with essentials for the upcoming week.

Then we thought it would be a good idea to have a stash at work, which is where Hu Gems and Hu Hunks came in... but neither really lasted for very long. The Hunks were just too damn good, with a mixture of salty sweetness combining with the crunch of almonds or cashews, depending on which bag we dipped in. And the Gems? Well... you'll find out below what happened with the Gems down below.

Suffice it to say, Hu blew our minds. We never expected that chocolate that had so many ingredient no-no's could be so... yes! Everything about it is delicious, and we don't miss any of the bars we used to eat to satisfy our sweet tooth. And the best part is, we don't feel guilty when we eat it (which might be why we eat it so much)! That must be part of the magic of enjoying food with real, pure, whole ingredients.

Also of note: Hu also recently expanded into healthy, grain-free snacking with their cracker line that comes in three flavors: Everything, Pizza and Sea Salt. And to help out during these challenging times, if you purchase a box of Hu's amazingly delicious crackers, they'll match with donations of an equal number of boxes to two local New York food banks dedicated to helping the food insecure!

We invite you to join us in our new obsession by shopping our faves below. Trust us: you won't regret it.

Hu Vanilla Crunch Chocolate Bars

We suppose you could start off slow, and just get a pack of four of these Vanilla Quinoa Qrispy Chocolate bars, which are basically a healthier take on a Nestle Crunch. With 70% dark chocolate, the subtle sweetness of real vanilla bean powder and gluten-free puffed quinoa, it's sweet and crunchy in all the right ways. (There's other single-flavor multi-packs to choose from, if this flavor doesn't float your boat.)

Hu Vegan Chocolate Bars, 8-Pack Variety

But really, you should go for it and just dive into the deep end of chocolatey deliciousness with this combo pack, featuring eight flavors for you to sample and find your favorite. If we may be so bold, we highly recommend the Salty Dark Chocolate, the Crunchy Mint Dark Chocolate, and the Hazelnut Butter, which tastes like Nutella in bar form (but without all the processed sugar and junk). Trust us, the only thing you'll regret about buying this sample pack is the moment you finish the last square, and realize you shoudla bought two sample packs.

Hu Hunks Variety 3-Pack

The next logical step in your Hu obsession is to graduate to Hunks, which come in three flavors: Almond, Cashew, and Sour Goldenberries. Each one is more delicious than the last, with the perfect blend of salty and sweet, with a little crunch, courtesy of the nuts. But if pressed to reveal which ones we'd want to live off of for the rest of our lives, it's the Sour Goldenberries. There's nothing quite like this flavor combo, and it's an absolute delight.

Hu Gems

But if you like your chocolate in baking form so you can make ooey, gooey, deliciously chewy, warm from the oven chocolate chip cookies, invest in the Gems. They're good for snacking or baking... and while we can't speak to the baking, we can definitely speak to the snacking. These sweet morsels of dark chocolate goodness were so delicious, we had to ask a co-worker to take the bag away from us before we tore through the whole thing in one sitting.

Need more snacking inspiration for friends and family? We also have goodies for low-carb snackers and keto kin.