KitKat Holiday Assorment

I’ve always underappreciated the KitKat. It’s never been a go-to candy for me, but every time I have one I remember how good they are. After eating my way through this assortment I’m a bit more interested in the KitKat and the wacky flavors you can find across the world. This assortment is pretty classic though: milk, dark, and white KitKats.


Milk Chocolate (red): This is your classic KitKat, but the smaller size throws off the proportions a little. There is more chocolate to wafer here, but that’s certainly not a bad thing. It’s sweet and perfect with a cup of coffee or tea. Scrumptious! Rating: 9/10

Mildly Sweet Dark Chocolate (dark brown): I’ve never had a Dark KitKat, but I’ve heard people rave about it. I have to admit that I was a little under-whelmed by this. It was good, but I wasn’t blown away. The initial flavor reminded me strongly of coffee, but that morphed into a semi-sweet chocolate chip flavor, which overtook the wafer. I think this would be very nice in a regular size, with more wafer to chocolate. Rating: 7/10

White Candy (white): Note that this is white confection, not white chocolate. That’s because it’s made with various vegetable oils, not pure cocoa butter. I’ve come to expect that with most mass-produced white products. Still, I did enjoy these. It has a strong vanilla flavor that works well with the wafers. Rating: 7/10

Nutrition Breakdown: Serving size is 5 pieces. Each serving contains 210 calories, 12g of fat, 20g of sugar, and 3g of protein.

Name: KitKat Assorted Minis
Brand: Hershey’s
Store: Target
Price: $1.66 (11oz)

Larabar Apple Pie

Now, a change from all that candy!

Larabars are raw fruit and nut bars. They are unprocessed, gluten free, dairy free, soy free, non-GMO, vegan, kosher, and have no sugar added. Now, tell me that's not healthy! There are several flavors, including (but not limited to) Pecan Pie, Ginger Snap, Cashew Cookie, and Key Lime Pie. Today I bring the Apple Pie flavor to you.

The best thing is that each flavor has 6 ingredients or less. The Apple Pie bar contains dates, almonds, unsweetened apples, walnuts, raisins, and cinnamon. I love it when I can recognize all of the ingredients in a product!

The bars average around 200 calories each. The Apple Pie contains 180 calories. It has 10 grams of fat, which seems like a lot, but keep in mind that 9 of those grams are healthy unsaturated fat from the nuts. The bar also packs 4 grams each of fiber and protein. It also counts as one serving of fruit on the food pyramid. Nice.

But I don't eat Larabars just because they are healthy. No, I eat Larabars because they taste good.

I'm not going to pretend that Larabars are attractive. In fact, they look rather unappetizing. The dates hold the other fruit and nuts together in the form of a brick. The nuts are pretty finely chopped, but you do get a chunk of almond occasionally.


I'm not an apple pie expert; I've only had it on a couple occasions. But I think the taste is pretty darn authentic. While there are no crust notes, the bar tastes like apple pie filling/baked cinnamon apples. There's no other way I can describe it. It's good.

The bars are moist and very filling. I'm not recommending them as a meal replacement, but they do keep me full for more than a couple of hours, which is great when I have five classes in a row. This makes the expense worth it for me: a box if 16 costs about $20. When you consider the average cost of health/energy bars, this really isn't that bad.

With so many bad-tasting, not-all-that-healthy health food bars out there, it's nice to see a product that uses the simplest ingredients to give us something tasty and healthy.

Rating: 9/10

Name: Apple Pie Larabar
Brand: Larabar
Store: Amazon.com / Drugstore.com
Price: About $20 for 16 bars