More Dates with Chocolate

Dates can be a good substitute for sugars but you do need to like that fruit because the flavor can be powerful. Today I'm to reveal whether or not Harken Sweets have used dates in a way that doesn't detract from the fair trade cocoa they use in these bars. This was another deal through Social Nature that I picked up two varieties of when I got last week's product to test out. Will these do better or worse than the LOVO?

Well start with The Crunchy One which has pretzels in it as well as more ingredients listed on the label. It also is 150 calories per bar. You can really see those pretzel pieces, can't you? The bar itself has a slightly sweet scent along with the pretzel fragrance once you cut it open, but little cocoa essence which isn't surprising since cocoa is the 4th from the end of the list of ingredients. The bar is sweet to bite into with bursts of salt and a hint of flour and date but not cocoa, not even slightly. So disappointing!

The Nutty One has fewer ingredients and cocoa is the 5th from the end ingredient, so I'm hoping this will have some cocoa flavor. Did you notice that the peanuts are few and far between in this bar especially when compared to the previous one? I did, too. This has a more neutral scent to it with the peanuts being the one fragrance that stands out. These are soften to bite into and chew. The peanut flavor gets stronger with each chew, but there is no cocoa flavor at any point, though it this does taste less sweet as well.

Both of these bars were deeply disappointing, but maybe they'd fit into your idea of tasty. If you want to check them out, I found them in the big section of snacks right before you get to the check out lines in Walmart.