All Things Chocolate!

We all have a food that is a constant temptation to us, something that we are always willing to slip up on our diet and indulge in. My “thing” is a good piece of milk chocolate! After starting Keto, chocolate was one thing that I missed the most. The sugar free options just didn’t satisfy that never ending craving for a Hershey’s milk chocolate bar! I tried Lilly’s chocolate chips but they were too dark, I tried Hershey’s sugar free, but found that they were filled with Maltitol which is a sweetener that I try to avoid! I tried Russell Stover’s sugar free “stevia sweetened” chocolates too, but guess what? They also have hidden (ok, had I read the actual ingredient label, I would’ve seen that it was clearly marked…) maltitol in them and gave me a horrible stomach ache!

But then I found Choc Zero!

Choc zero is a miracle chocolate in my opinion. It is sweetened with Monkfruit and if you count net carbs the bars that I found originally contain 3 net carbs for a 1 ounce bar! This was amazing. They have several different flavors and actually distinguish between dark and milk chocolate!

You see, I don’t mind baking with dark chocolate, dipping things into darker chocolate or even melting a few dark chocolate chips into some peanut butter for a quick treat. But what I really missed was biting into a piece of milk chocolate and getting that creamy, rich flavor you can only find in a Hershey bar….or so I thought.

Choc Zero is a small company that started it's journey in 2016 with a goal to make a healthy chocolate option without the unnecessary sugar and carbohydrates. They found a way to make the most delicious chocolate that is sweetened with monkfruit and add soluble corn fiber to make the net carb count lower. It is up to you whether or not you want to put corn fiber into your body on keto, but I use this chocolate as a healthy treat option several times a week. (I recently started to count total carbs instead of net, but I found an option that goes well with this version of keto as well!)

All of the options I am going to share with you are the ones that I have found on amazon, but for a complete view of all of Choc Zero’s products please visit their website (https://www.choczero.com/collections/all) you will not be disappointed!

The first Choc Zero product that I tried was the Keto Bark, Milk chocolate variety with Hazelnuts. It was amazing! I stuck with this as my go to treat for months, until a friend of mine gifted me a milk chocolate with toasted COCONUT in it! Now THIS is the ultimate, decadent form of treat when on a low carb/no sugar diet! I was so impressed that I immediately ordered a 2 pack of the coconut flavor! These keto bark bars weigh in at one ounce and are about 11-16 total grams of carbohydrates with 8-13 grams of fiber making each bar about 3 net carbs (depending on the variety). When counting net carbs, this was a dream come true to have something that actually tastes like real milk chocolate and then only having to use 3 net carbs! It was wonderful!

Later I noticed they had the smaller milk chocolate squares that were about ⅓ of an ounce. I looked at the nutritional facts and they had 4 total carbs and 3 grams of fiber, 1 NET CARB per square! So I immediately ordered a 3 pack of these with my next order! Now that I am counting total carbs instead of net, I find that these little milk chocolate squares are JUST what I need to feel like I had a treat with a hot cup of coffee. Because I count it as 4 carbs, I stop with one piece and it satisfies my chocolate craving. And let’s be real here, if I’m REALLY craving some chocolate I have TWO, but I always count it toward my total carbs to keep myself in check.

This was supposed to be an all things chocolate blog post, but I kinda feel like Choc Zero is the only chocolate for me! Seriously, it’s the only chocolate I’ve used and really really LOVED.

But I will go through a couple of other kinds that I have tried to be as informative as possible for

you!

Hershey’s Sugar Free Chocolate Chips:

My first couple of months on Keto, I used Hershey’s sugar free chocolate chips. I had done very little research when it comes to sugar substitutes and to be honest, I just trusted the names on the labels. If it said “sugar free” and the net carbs were fairly low, I deemed it keto appropriate and bought it. Little did I know that the sugar sub used in these chips could cause MAJOR stomach upset and most likely had a higher glycemic index than SUGAR ITSELF! I mean, come on! If Maltitol is going to cause a worse sugar/insulin spike than sugar, what was the point in giving up sugar in the first place?

To be fair, my husband and I didn’t suffer from the stomach upset from this product. I’m convinced that it’s because our bodies were just used to the abuse they got from the food we had consumed over the years prior to keto. But be aware: this could be a major issue and cause you to be in the bathroom until they are out of your system!

Russell Stover’s Sugar Free Chocolate:

So back to the trusting labels, I bought these because they were “stevia sweetened,” however, they also contains the dreaded Maltitol! When I bought these for the first time, I had struggled with cravings for a couple of days, and been keto for over 4 months. My body had adjusted to the keto lifestyle but I wanted a treat, BAD! So I ran into Rite Aide and grabbed a bag of “stevia sweetened” milk chocolate turtles. They tasted amazing and I ate half the bag before I got home from the store. I read the ingredients AFTER my stomach started to feel...off. MALTITOL! I was shocked! I felt so irritated. By this time I had come across some of the information about maltitol and stomach upset and had realized it was an ingredient in the Atkins bars that we were eating as well. I had just stopped eating those, because of the maltitol...and here I sat being sabotaged by maltitol!...all because I didn't. read. the. label.

That was the experience that made me realize that if I was going to be serious about the Keto way of life, I needed to be serious about reading labels and understanding what was in all the food that I was putting into my body.

Lily’s Dark Chocolate Stevia Sweetened Chocolate Chips:

So for a lot of people on Keto, these chocolate chips are the best and they fill the craving for a good chocolate. First of all, they are indeed sweetened with stevia and the label supports that claim! That’s great. BUT I found that they were just to dark of a chocolate for my taste. If you are a dark chocolate lover, please try these, they may be just what you are looking for! But I don’t use them in anything that the chocolate doesn’t need to be melted for the recipe. (think chocolate chip cookies)

Lily’s has a whole line of products that **I have not tried**! I have seen wonderful reviews on their chocolate bars and chips of all kinds. After my experience of liking the chips in a “so-so” manner, I decided not to splurge on the bars themselves.

This is in no way a negative review on Lily's chocolates as a whole!

But do feel free to try them for yourself if you feel so inclined! And definitely let me know which ones I should splurge on!

How do I use these chocolate chips since I have them in my cupboard? I make a quick, melty fat bomb when I’m craving something sweet! I melt 1 T of coconut butter (not oil), 1-3 tsp of peanut butter, a few chocolate chips and a bit of powdered sweetener in the microwave for 30 seconds. I mix it together till creamy and eat it! It is so creamy and delicious, I just LOVE it, and so do my kids!

So that, my friends, is my take on “all things chocolate.” These are definitely my personal opinions, but I feel pretty strongly about them! So if you’re fairly new to keto and just so tired of trying recipe after recipe for something simply sweet and delicious, I would recommend Choc Zero! If you want dark or milk, they have it. If you want hazelnuts, almonds, peanuts or coconut, they have it. If you want a 1 ounce bar or a ⅓ ounce bite, they have it. We love Choc Zero and it is worth every single penny!