Good source for cocoa flavanols

Factual Questions
1

[Not sure if this belongs in GQ or IMHO. Moderators feel free to move if desired.]

I’ve recently read about some research showing how flavanols[sup]1[/sup] from cocoa will improve memory in older people. There are probably other good things they do for you, but they’re not as well-founded scientifically. However, I’ve also read that solid chocolate (especially dark chocolate) has virtually no flavanols. They are either destroyed or removed during processing. Apparently cocoa powder is where it’s at.

So could I just get some ordinary hot chocolate drink mix to get lots of flavanols or do I have to buy some overpriced[sup]2[/sup] stuff from a health food store? Or is there some other alternative?

[sup]1[/sup] Not to be confused with flavonols, a distinct chemical class. Both are part of the flavonoids, I think. But really, can’t chemists avoid naming chemical classes with words distinguished by a single letter in the middle of the word? Alkanes, alkenes and alkynes are bad enough; you’d think they’d have learned their lesson.

[sup]2[/sup] Everything in health food stores is overpriced.

2

You can buy pure unsweetened cocoa powder. It’s inexpensive. 8 ounces for 2 or 3 bucks. I think it’s in the baking aisle in supermarkets. Either there or the aisle with coffee, hot chocolate mix, etc. Hershey’s is one example, but there may be generics or other brands.

3

CocoaVia (owned by Mars) is probably the closest you can get to what’s used in those Mars-funded studies. They have capsules too, since consuming nearly 1000mg of flavanols daily (the amount in the recent study) takes a lot of cocoa. Even with the capsules, that’s four per day, or $60/month. It would be very difficult to consume that amount with regular cocoa powder, or dark chocolate, especially if you believe Mars’s claim that regular processing destroys most of them. Mars has been trying to commercialize their process of preserving the flavanols for a while now, and funding studies to show that there’s a significant benefit to consuming them.