Monday, November 26, 2007

Hershey's Whole Bean Chocolate

I picked this up without knowing what it was. It was on sale for $1, so I thought, “Why not?”

I did a little research and found that this is part of Hershey's "Goodness" product line. Here's the deal: It's healthy chocolate! Healthy milk chocolate! The wrapper boasts 40% less sugar than the leading milk chocolate bar (which I assume is the Hershey bar). It also has 7g of fiber, 4g of protein, and 25% of the DRV of calcium per serving. Those stats aren't bad. Each serving still has 215 calories however, so it's not exactly diet food. The extra fiber comes from added inulin fiber, and the extra calcium comes from calcium carbonate.

Don't get too excited just yet though. I, at least, have a big problem with this bar. It contains sucralose, an artificial sweetener, aka Splenda. I do NOT like artificial sweeteners in my food, especially in my candy. I want sugar in my candy! Natural sugar! Artificial sweeteners have a terrible aftertaste. But more importantly, they irritate my stomach. I can't even have sugar-gum anymore.

This bar also contains PGPR, which, according to Wikipedia, is an emulsifier made from the castor oil plant. Ew. It's a cheap substitute for the cocoa butter in chocolate. A lot of mainstream bars contain this now, but this bar retails for $2 and is supposed to be “Whole Bean!” It shouldn't contain PGPR.

So I almost chucked this out, but I was curious and decided to have a piece.

Well, it smells like a Hershey bar. It even tastes a bit like a Hershey bar, just milder. It starts with that classic Hershey's tang, then morphs into something that reminds me of chocolate milk mix. It's not bad. It's smooth and melts well. I didn't notice any aftertaste, but I only had 2-3 bites. It's what the wrapper claims: "sweet, smooth milk chocolate.”

So I'm not going to rate this. I can't rate it fairly. The ingredients totally turn me off. The taste is fine, and it could be nice for people trying to decrease their sugar intake.

But if I want less sugar and more fiber/protein, I'm not going to look for a candy bar. I'll go with a nice granola bar like Kashi, which doesn't contain unnatural sweeteners!

Name: Whole Bean Chocolate
Brand: Hershey's
Price: $1.00
Store: Big Lots

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I too was so peeved at the artificial sweeteners and PGPR in this bar that I didn't eat the sample that Hershey sent to me.

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