REVIEWED - Well, Naturally No added Suger Milk Chocolate Bar

No Added Sugar Milk Chocolate Bar [Peppermint Chip and Jaffa Orange]

Poor sugar. While fat was the diet industry’s scapegoat of the late 1990s and early 2000s, this decade sugar is in our bad books, and with good reason. In early 2013 The Australian Dietary Guidelines were updated to advise that we ,limit our intake of added sugar for health reasons, placing it in the same category as salt and alcohol.

But this hasn’t changed people’s behaviour anywhere near as much as B-grade celebrity Sarah Wilson’s book and website I Quit Sugar, and the somewhat more vehement proselytising of David Gillespie, author of Sweet Poison. Claims that sugar is just another addictive drug have got health nuts (usually those whose diets are fine, anyway) worried.

Well, Naturally chocolate is brought into Australia by Vitality Brands, who import products in the health and sports nutrition market. The difference in the Well, Naturally milk chocolate is that it is virtually sugar-free, sweetened instead with Stevia, a now well-known plant-derived sweetener with no calories but a sugar-like flavour. Brands such as these are jumping into a new market created by the anti-sugar movement, on the safe bet that those quitting sugar don’t necessarily want to give up eating sweet foods.

AMB tested both the Jaffa Orange and Peppermint Chip flavours. Both tasted like normal chocolate, and had a fantastic smooth texture. The Jaffa flavour was truer to ordinary chocolate, though, as the peppermint chips had a slight chemical edge similar to your spearmint mouthwash, probably caused by the alternative sweetener.

Just as we’ve recalibrated our views of low fat foods, which often replaced fat with increased sugar, and sometimes had more calories than their full-gas equivalent – when sugar is removed from a product – like chocolate – traditionally made with sugar, something has to replace it.

In this case it’s fat – a bar of Well, Naturally sugar free chocolate will give you more saturated fat than a Mars Bar, and only 0.3 fewer calories per gram.

This is a fantastic product for people who must avoid sugar, but if you’re trying to reduce your calorie intake overall, it might be better to eat your favourite chocolate bar occasionally, rather than opt for a product designed to alleviate your guilt – if you’re anything like us, you’ll just eat more of it, eat it more often, or compensate for those savings somewhere else.

RRP: AUD $39 box of 16 online. Individual bars retail for approximately $2.50

Available: online at www.vitalitybrands.com or from supermarkets, health food stores, and Terry White pharmacies.

Contact: www.vitalitybrands.com