Guilt-Free Chocolate Snacking with Saxon

Although we should choose healthy foods all year long, January is the season where many people want to make healthier snacking choices. And for a lot of us, chocolate is a real craving that does not go away during the first months of the new year. So now is a good time to tell you about some 'healthier' chocolate snacks that I have recently found. These might just help satisfy those chocolate cravings with minimal guilt.

Saxon Chocolates is a Toronto-based chocolate business that makes a large range of chocolate treats, which are sold in the United States and Canada. I have tried many of their products and have liked several, but also tasted a few that I would not buy again.  However, there are a few great ones that stand out in my mind, and also happen to be 'guilt-free'.

A local cafe recently began selling three kinds of Saxon 100 Calorie Chocolate Bars: a 38% milk chocolate, a 64% dark chocolate and a 70% dark chocolate.  These are excellent snack-sized chocolates for those times when you need a pick-me-up, like during that mid-afternoon sleepy lull at the office. The bar is small enough to control your portion and large enough to satisfy your craving.

I really liked the milk chocolate bar, despite my usual preference for dark chocolate. I also enjoyed the 64% dark chocolate, which was a perfect balance of sweet and bitter, but was not a fan of the 70% (which I felt had too much vanilla flavour in it, causing it to taste sweeter than the 64% and also flatter in chocolate flavour).


Another of my Saxon-favourites are Cocoa Cinnamon Almonds.  These have a nice crunch and are not very chocolaty, in fact there is only cocoa powder in the ingredients list with the almonds, cane sugar, natural flavours, spices and salt. There is no added fat or unnatural stuff and they are not slathered in milk chocolate, so the almonds are a perfect not-so-sweet sweet snack.  This is also a filling snack, perfect for mid-morning when you feel that pre-lunch hunger or four o'clock p.m. when you need to fill up a bit before the ride home from work. And with the perfectly portioned package size, you can either have a handful of almonds for good heart health each day, or eat more without the nagging guilt that comes with eating too many traditional chocolate-covered almonds.

I purchased these products at Loco Beanz cafe in the town of Little Current on Manitoulin Island.  However, Saxon sells a large variety of chocolaty gift items at retailers in Canada and the United States (like Chapters/Indigo and Neiman Marcus).  You can see the full list of retailers here: http://www.saxonchocolates.com/store_locator.html.  You can also purchase some items online: http://www.shopsaxon.com.

Happy Chocolate Snacking!