Hershey’s Dark Chocolates just a healthy dose of candy

By Bonnie Tandy Leblang and Carolyn Wyman, Universal Press Syndicate
February 22, 2006

Hershey Extra Dark Chocolate Bars. Pure Dark, Pure Dark With Cranberries, Blueberries and Almonds, and Pure Dark With Macadamias and Cranberries. $1.99 per 3.5-ounce bar or $2.99 per 5.1-ounce pouch of Pure Dark Miniatures.

Bonnie: The explosion of new foods from dark chocolate seems directly proportional to the hype about the results of research linking the natural flavanol antioxidants in cocoa to heart health. Specifically, it’s linked to improved blood pressure and arterial function.

Hershey’s contributions to the avalanche are three dark-chocolate candy bars with added nuts and fruits (antioxidant-rich ones, of course). My favorite features almonds, cranberries and blueberries, but they’re all delicious. .

If you’re a chocolate eater, dark chocolate like Hershey’s Extra Dark is a better choice than milk chocolate. But this is still candy.

Carolyn: Hershey’s product response to the flavonoid studies is more measured than competitor Mars: Its new dark-chocolate products are candy, not a health program.

Unlike Mars CocoaVia, these Hershey’s Extra Dark bars don’t contain soy, calcium and extra vitamins: only delicious dark chocolate, dried fruits and nuts.

Only the plain Pure Dark are sold in bite-size pieces; the others are offered only in mega-bar size. Add Americans’ increasingly sophisticated palates to the new studies showing the health benefits of dark chocolate, and I’m sure they could find buyers for the 1.5-ounce bars, too.

By the way, the Hershey’s chocolate with the most flavanols (a type of flavonoid in chocolate) is actually the very old Hershey’s (or any brand) unsweetened cocoa.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 23rd, 2006 at 8:31 am and is filed under Candy News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.