By Karolina Buchling, Co-Founder of Juthan Chocolate & Registered Nutritional Therapist
Five Nourish Awards for Juthan — and a philosophy that has been part of our chocolate from the beginning.
There is something slightly unusual about being both a nutritional therapist and the co-founder of a chocolate company.
People sometimes smile when I tell them.
But to me, there has never really been a contradiction.
Because good nutrition isn't about eating perfectly.
And chocolate doesn't have to sit on the opposite side of health.
What interests me more is the relationship we have with food.
For decades, we have been taught to divide food into categories.
Good food. Bad food.
Food we can eat freely. Food we need to “be good” to deserve.
And somewhere along the way, pleasure became something we started feeling guilty about.
I don't think that is a particularly helpful way to eat.
In my work as a nutritional therapist and eating psychology coach, I spend a lot of time helping people move away from rules, guilt and constant food negotiation.
Not towards eating without thought.
Towards eating with more awareness.
And that philosophy has quietly influenced Juthan too.
We never wanted to make “diet chocolate”
When Willem and I created Juthan, we wanted to make genuinely exceptional chocolate.
That meant starting with the cocoa bean.
Choosing beautiful ingredients.
Learning how roasting changes flavour.
Refining slowly.
And being slightly obsessive about texture.
But I was also interested in something else.
Could we challenge some of the assumptions about what chocolate needed to contain, without making the result feel like a substitute for the “real thing”?
Some people prefer to limit added sugar.
Some don't eat dairy.
That shouldn't automatically mean choosing something less pleasurable.
This thinking eventually became part of the inspiration behind Essence 75 and Coffee 75.
Both contain no added sugar or milk.
But we never wanted them to taste like chocolates created around what had been removed.
We wanted them to be chosen because of what was there.
The cocoa.
The aroma.
The texture.
The craftsmanship.
The experience.
In other words, they still had to be Juthan.
Perhaps we need to talk less about guilt
This is probably where my two worlds come together most clearly.
I don't particularly like the phrase “guilt-free food.”
Because food was never guilty in the first place.
And neither were you for eating it.
Of course, nutrition matters.
Ingredients matter.
How we eat most of the time matters.
But so do pleasure, culture, celebration and the simple enjoyment of something beautiful.
A piece of chocolate doesn't need to become a moral decision.
Sometimes it can simply be chocolate.
Future flavours in our no-added-sugar range |
Choose with intention
There is an idea at the heart of both my work with food and our approach at Juthan:
Choose with intention. Then allow yourself to enjoy it.
Chocolate is particularly suited to this.
Break off a piece.
Notice the aroma before you taste it.
Let it melt.
Notice when the bitterness arrives.
Then the fruit.
Perhaps something roasted.
Perhaps acidity.
Perhaps a flavour you weren't expecting at all.
Fine chocolate can reveal remarkable complexity when we give ourselves enough time to actually experience it.
There is a world of difference between eating something absent-mindedly and actually tasting it.
But the point isn't to create another rule around how chocolate should be eaten.
It is simply an invitation to slow down enough to experience what is actually there.
This is something I talk about in my nutrition work too.
Not:
“How can I control myself around food?”
But:
“Can I actually be present enough to enjoy it?”
Those are very different conversations.
Indulgence can simply be indulgence
We seem to have reached a strange place where almost everything pleasurable needs to justify itself.
Chocolate needs protein.
Dessert needs to be “clean”.
Cake needs to be earned by exercise.
Indulgence needs a health claim attached to it before we give ourselves permission to enjoy it.
I don't think it does.
Juthan chocolate isn't medicine.
It isn't a nutritional programme.
And we aren't interested in pretending chocolate is something it isn't.
It is chocolate.
Beautifully made chocolate.
And sometimes pleasure is reason enough.
For me, mindful indulgence is not restriction disguised as wellness.
Nor is it excess disguised as self-care.
It is choosing something you genuinely value, being present enough to appreciate it, and allowing pleasure to be part of the experience.
 |
Why the Nourish Awards feel particularly meaningful
This year, Juthan received six awards at the 2026 Nourish Awards, including recognition for Essence 75 and Coffee 75.
I was particularly pleased by these awards because Nourish considers more than flavour alone.
Its Food & Drink Awards assess products across nutrition, ingredients, flavour and texture, with entries evaluated by health and nutrition professionals.
For chocolates that began with a simple question -
Can we remove added sugar and milk without removing the pleasure?
- that recognition means a great deal.
But perhaps the thing I am proudest of is that we never had to choose between our principles and the product.
The chocolate still came first.
Chocolate worth stopping for
Perhaps this is ultimately what I hope Juthan represents.
Not “healthy chocolate”.
Not guilty pleasure.
Not permission to eat something because a label tells you it is allowed.
Just exceptional chocolate made with care.
Chocolate made from the bean.
Chocolate made with purposeful ingredients.
Chocolate designed to reveal its flavour slowly rather than simply deliver sweetness.
Something worth stopping for.
Something worth tasting properly.
Something you choose because you genuinely enjoy it.
Because food should nourish more than our bodies.
Sometimes it should simply give us a moment of pleasure.
And I think there should always be room for that.
Perhaps the question isn't:
“Should I be eating chocolate?”
Perhaps it is:
“If I choose chocolate, can I choose something worth savouring?”
At Juthan, we think the answer is yes.
Karolina
Co-Founder, Juthan Chocolate
Registered Nutritional Therapist & Eating Psychology Coach
https://www.karolinabuchling.com/
|