Sweet-O For Keto
Barbara Delgado of Ventura just wanted a sweet treat while following the widely popular Keto Diet. But everywhere she looked, she was disappointed. Nothing that was touted as a healthy sugar substitute tasted good. So, she decided to investigate the problem.
After an exhaustive process of tinkering and tasting, she came up with a winning formula, which she now grinds and tempers in her own kitchen and sells at Palermo’s Coffee, Gelato and Gifts in downtown Ventura.
“It just seemed like there weren’t very many options for chocolate without sugar. I looked into how to do it myself, and it’s a huge ordeal. So, I thought, ‘If I’m going to go through all of that trouble, I might as well sell it,’” Delgado says.
She took advantage of the 2012 California Homemade Food Act, which allows people to produce small batches of goods in the home and sell them. To be eligible, Delgado says she had to have her home kitchen inspected by Ventura County officials for cleanliness and safety.
The mother of two—Violet, 17, and Russell, 13—was a geologist by training and a partner with husband Miguel Delgado in his optometry business until it closed. She is also an enthusiastic cook.
“I just spent months of trial and error,” she says. “For sweetening, I turned to stevia, xylitol, erythritol. Those are all sugars that do very little to raise blood sugar. Those were the ones I preferred because they’re most natural. I spent time mixing them together to create the right ratios and the right flavor that tasted most like sugar.”
She buys raw cacao nibs, roasts them and “then I grind everything in a stone wheel grinder.” She says the name for her product doesn’t come from the process, but rather is the maiden name of her grandmother, Louise Stone Lund.
So far, the Stone Chocolates line includes chocolate peanut butter (both milk chocolate and dark), dark and milk chocolate-only bars, and milk chocolate with pistachios and dark chocolate with almonds.
Stone Chocolates
805-336-1322
StoneChocolates@gmail.com
