Get Ready for National Chocolate Covered Almonds Day

iLike! Choco Covered Almonds

Cacao beans are bitter by their very chemical nature, so many cultures add sweeteners to the process of turning those beans into food and drinks. How much you need or want is a matter of taste. Today I'm going to share my experiences with iLike! No Sugar Added Dark Chocolate Covered Almond Candy. These are NOT sweetener free, the first ingredient is maltitol, a sugar alcohol which is processed by the human body differently than candy or beet sugar. The trick for most food manufacturers in my experience in these past 13 years of writing this blog is that maltitol is 90% as sweet at 50% of the calories; often too much of it is added to a product making it too sweet. By contrast, consumers often eat too much of it at a time which can cause digestive issues. Let's see if this candy (rightly labeled as such since the first ingredient is not chocolate mass/liquor) has the right balance of sweet, bitter, and nutty. I was sent a free bag of this product to test and review on Amazon via the Vine program. This article on The Chocolate Cult is an unexpected bonus for the brand and Amazon. No other form of compensation was received for writing about my experiences with this product.

The amount you see in the photo above is the amount in one serving by weight. It varied a bit by number of almonds because they are different sizes. The chocolate candy is wonderfully dark tasting without being bitter (that's why it is candy). The almonds were firm but easy to chew and eat. They were not salty which can be a problem with coated nuts of all types. I really loved this product and I enjoy a serving of it once or twice a week since trying it. The bag is two pounds so I've got a lot of this delight to keep enjoying. Luckily the bag reseals so that stay fresh. I highly recommend this product. This earns Sacrament status!