Bye Bye Bad Chocolate

International speaker and local author Julie Pech (The Chocolate Therapist: A User’s Guide to the Extraordinary Health Benefits of Chocolate) maintains that the only difference between eating chocolate every day guilt-free versus guilt-laden is “education.” Her mission? To change the chocolate world as we know it today, one convert at a time.

To make sure she gets the job done properly, Pech teaches two different classes about chocolate at the Colorado Free University (Chocolate & Wine and Chocolate Lover’s Paradise), speaks at hospitals, retirement homes, fund raisers, corporate luncheons, women’s groups and even men’s groups, and perhaps “toughest” job of all--travels around the world as a guest chocolate lecturer with a cruise line.


Pech is clearly passionate about what she does, and after you’ve seen one of her chocolate presentations you’ll be as devoted to making sure you get the “right” chocolate as she is. Her information is well organized, well researched and entertaining as well as educational. “I get e-mails and hear chocolate stories every day,” she says. “People continually tell me they’ve totally changed the way they eat chocolate after reading the book. Just the other day someone e-mailed to say that I’d “ruined” his love of milk chocolate. He converted in one of my classes--I consider this the ultimate success!”


In addition to her book, Pech also created a book/chocolate bar gift set that sells out nearly as fast as she can take delivery on the chocolate. Each set contains a signed book and three custom-created bars designed for health, including a “Going to the Dark Side” for milk-chocolate enthusiasts made up of a layer of dark covered by a layer of milk chocolate. “I designed this bar because I’m a milk-chocolate lover myself. I was always eating dark and milk together to get the flavor of milk with the health benefits of dark, so I created a bar to help make the switch. Even though I eat more dark now, Going to the Dark Side is still my favorite.”


A recent presentation at The Vitamin Cottage’s Green Mountain location netted over 65 book sales with the store taking an addition 70 books for upcoming presentations at other locations. Pech says sales are usually very good at her presentations because people buy multiple copies for their chocolate-loving cohorts, occasionally as many as 20 books. She also donates a percentage of every sale to a foundation she created to benefit underprivileged children around the world.


“I realized from the start I had tapped into something unique, so I decided to give back a part of every book. Sometimes it seems like charities and non-profits have become the driving force behind this project’s extraordinary momentum, and I’ve realized that one of my favorite clichés is true: “The universe dreams a bigger dream than you can dream for yourself,” and I have a huge dream. I’m not sure I would have believed it if I wasn’t living it, but it’s expanding every day and it’s very exciting. Even in my presentations I tell people to leap first and look for the net later. The most amazing thing catches you—you just don’t know what it will be until you’ve leaped.”


Watch for upcoming events with the Compa Food Bank Ministry, Public Broadcasting System and even Denver’s first annual Chocolate Festival (www.chocolate-festival.org) to be held in May of 2008.

Both the book ($10) and the gift set ($20) are available on Julie's website at www.TheChocolateTherapist.com or by calling 720-981-5806.