I got these Simply Lite Sugar Free and No Sugar Added chocolates as free samples. I generally try to eat healthily, but that usually doesn’t extend to my candy selections, so these aren’t something that I’d buy for myself.
The tagline on these bars is “fine chocolates for the health and calorie conscious.” I find the accuracy of that assertion to be debatable.
A quick comparison to some regular chocolate bars shows that they’re no less fattening and save only a few calories per serving. They are, however, lower in carbs and sugar. But is that worth the warning on the back, “Excessive consumption may cause a laxative effect”?
The milk chocolate bar smelled sweet with a hint of caramel. The melt was thick with a slight graininess, but it didn’t manage to coat the mouth the way that some milk chocolates do.
It tasted sweet and fruity, but lacked the dusky, thick caramel notes that I love in my fine milk chocolate. It reminded me of a less sweet and not at all tangy regular Hershey’s bar.
I was surprised at how unartificial it tasted. It was far better than Hershey’s or Nestle’s plain milk chocolates.
The sugar free dark chocolate also smelled sweet. It snapped when broken by my fingers but not when chewed. It’s texture was a bit weird, with a finely grainy melt.
The dark bar tasted fruity with light hints of spice and an impressively lasting finish. It reminded me of Hershey’s Special Dark chocolate or a generic semisweet chocolate chip.
The dark chocolate with almonds bar featured whole almonds that were impressively nutty. The dark chocolate was similar to the plain dark chocolate bar, but it carried a pronounced cinnamon flavor and less fruitiness.
I appreciated the quality of the almonds but was thrown by the stinginess. There were only almonds in half of the bar – half of the pre-segmented squares were plain! I hope I just got a wonkily made aberration.
I was pretty impressed at Simply Lite’s line-up. In a blind testing, I would never guess that these are low carb/low sugar. As a regular chocolate treat, I give them an O. Were I to actually need to restrict my diet, they’d warrant a higher rating.
The Candygurus also reviewed these bars. I concur with Matty – that laxative effect is fo’ real, but not in an unpleasant way (at least after the amount that I sampled). These could be a nicer-tasting twist on the laxative brownie prank.
Varsha