To everyone, I've lost my links to various pages and have been unable to find them again using Connect's new format so if anyone can share my post elsewhere, please do so.

Renal patients are told to avoid chocolate. I have no intention of arguing with the experts or of telling people to ignore expert advice. However, I AM willing to share some information and my personal experience.

Do NOT use any of my recipes without checking with your care team or a renal dietitian or your physician(s) and so forth.

Here's some info about chocolate: According to the USDA and/or Hershey's, 1 tablespoon of 100% pure cacao (aka cocoa) powder contains 10 cal 25 mg P
97 mg K 0 mg Na <1 Gm prtn. It also has approx 8 mg caffeine.

I have permission from my nephrologist to use cacao (without dairy, of course,) in small amounts. I make chocolate sauce (to use SPARINGLY) with almond milk or coconut milk and maple sugar and recently have been experimenting with ingredients to make a chocolate shell for ice cream and other frozen treats.

Here are shell results so far: I combined 1/4 C coconut oil (melted) + 1/4 C 100% pure cacao powder + 1/4 C maple syrup. The result was a bit grainy because I was impatient and didn't mix the ingredients well enough before sampling and I suspect I didn't melt the coconut oil enough. The mixture set up and hardened on its own without being added to something cold; I believe this was due to the fact that I keep my pure maple syrup refrigerated and it was too cold to maintain the shell mixture in a softened state until applied to a cold ingredient.

But it was delicious!

I'm still experimenting with it and probably will concoct a couple of different versions before I come up with something I'm satisfied with. I'll post any improvements or suggestions but I think the current version would be great on chilled strawberries, for instance, or other small pieces of fruit. I tried my initial batch on non-dairy lemon-flavored Italian ice and except for the fact that the shell actually hardened too much before I could apply it easily, it was delicious.

Here are the nutrition facts for home-made vegan chocolate shell:

Choc shell 12 T 774.4 cal 102.4 mg P 875.8 mg K 5.2 mg Na 4 Gm prtn

1 T 64.5 cal 8.5 mg P 73 mg K 0.4 mg Na 0.3 Gm prtn

¼ C cacao 40 cal 100 mg P 679 mg K 0 mg Na 4 Gm prtn

¼ C melted coconut oil 480 cal

2-4 T maple sugar or syrup 254.4 cal 2.4 mg P 196.8 mg K 5.2 mg Na 0 prtn

Again, do NOT consume this without checking with your care team first!

I am NOT telling any renal patient to take in chocolate, I merely am sharing my own decision to use small amounts with my own nephrologist's okay to do so.