Before we answer the question on Russell Stovers Chocolate, let’s get started on this review by taking a quick scan of the ingredients:
Russell Stovers Chocolate Ingredients
“maltitol, maltitol syrup, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, palm kernel oil, modified milk ingredients, polydextrose, water, soy lecithin, salt, rebiana (stevia extract), spice, flavour, artificial flavour, colour, citric acid, sodium benzoate”
Notice the top two: maltitol and maltitol syrup. They’re first so it stands to reason the highest level of concentration is contained in those ingredients.
Maltitol is pretty infamous on the internet as it’s the key ingredient in sugar free gummy bears that have reviews like this from amazon:
A Review To Keep In Mind
“What came out of me felt like someone tried to funnel Niagara Falls through a coffee straw. I swear my sphincters were screaming. It felt like my delicate starfish was a gaping maw projectile vomiting a torrential flood of toxic waste. 100% liquid. Flammable liquid. NAPALM”
The cause behind that discomfort does point at maltitol and the “discomfort” it can cause some people. The reason I bring this forward right away is Stover’s puts Stevia front and center on the package. In reality it’s quite far down on the list and obviously not the primary sweetener.
Russell Stovers Chocolate Numbers Are Good
For me personally this kind of put my back up right away, but I bit the bullet and tried what looked like an awesome treat. With maltitol being a sugar alcohol the carb count seems very high at 25, but 5 of that is fibre and 19 is sugar alcohols giving a dirty net carb count of 1 gram per 3 blocks of the bar.
Link may have had to move in a hurry!
So without further ado, how was the taste. Sort of blah. It was okay, very sweet and the caramel was good and gooey on the inside, but there was a very artificial aftertaste we just couldn’t get over. I finished my three blocks, but Wendy gave up after two. The week before we had tried the Lily’s Milk Chocolate bar which set the expectations very high. Unfortunately for us, Stover’s wasn’t in the same league taste wise.
Not Our Cup of Tea… or Sweets I Guess
I can say it didn’t give us the “explosive” results that some have experienced with maltitol, which was welcome, but it did make me go read a bunch of those reviews for a good laugh.
Overall it might make for a nice little treat for some, but not this married couple. It appears we are definitely a Lily’s Sweets family when it comes to our sugar free chocolate.
Thank you friends,
Bill
