CocoaVia Chocolate and Snack Bars. Chocolate, Chocolate Almond, Chocolate Blueberry, and Chocolate Cherry Snack Bars; Chocolate Covered Almonds; and Original Chocolate, Crispy Chocolate and Blueberry & Almond Chocolate Bars. $4.99 per 3.55- to 5-ounce box or bag.
Bonnie: I felt almost virtuous eating one of these new CocoaVia candy bars, thinking I was doing something good for my heart. Then I snapped back to reality, realizing that I was eating a candy bar.
Let me back up a second. CocoaVia candy bars do contain lots of heart-healthy ingredients. They include plant sterols, which lower blood cholesterols when eaten in specific quantities twice a day, as long as you continue to eat them. (Sterols are also found in orange juice, granola bars and margarines.)
Each CocoaVia bar also contains flavanols or phytochemicals with antioxidant benefits and added heart-healthy vitamins and minerals.
But even with all that, I can't recommend eating two of these daily. That's because these are still candy bars, and two a day will be sure to promote an expanding waistline. What I can recommend is that people who regularly eat candy bars consider eating one of these new CocoaVia products instead.
Carolyn: The too-good-to-be-true research showing the heart benefits of eating dark chocolate is now starting to produce some similarly too-good-to-be-believed chocolate products.
MasterFoods' CocoaVia line starts with the idea of the healthful flavanols in dark chocolate and includes other good-for-you ingredients like soy, blueberries, nuts and calcium. And it offers small portion sizes.
The thin, segmented chocolate bars, for instance, have only 100 calories and are delicious, if you like bittersweet chocolate. These include a Nestle Crunch copycat with soy crisps that thankfully lend texture and no soy taste, and Chocolate Blueberry, which sounds a lot weirder than it tastes (like chocolate-covered cherries, without the juice).
The CocoaVia snack bars are also fine for what they are, which is more of a grain-based granola bar than straight chocolate, and therefore less of a treat. They are like half-sized versions of the tastiest energy bars (i.e., Luna).
The chocolate-covered almonds are like the chocolate-covered raisins and peanuts bridge mix, except that the hard chocolate coating is dark rather than milk. It's a very satisfactory replacement for a bag of Peanut M&M's, with 100 fewer calories.
So it's too bad that, at least initially, these are not going to be sold at checkout stands alongside M&M's, but instead only in the healthy foods sections of grocery and department stores — where the chocolate lovers who could most benefit from CocoaVia's nutritional advantages rarely go.
Sunshine Cheez-It Fiesta Baked Snack Crackers. Cheddar Nacho, and Cheesy Taco. $3.49 per 14-ounce box.
Bonnie: Cheez-Its may be baked rather than fried, but they're still very fatty. In fact, both original Cheez-Its and these new Fiesta versions contain 8 grams of fat per serving, or twice the fat of the hardly anemic Ritz crackers. These also contain mucho additives, colorings and flavor enhancers. No wonder the Cheesy Taco flavor tastes like chemicals.
The Cheddar Nacho is only a bit better. Neither lives up to the box's promise of tasting like a tortilla, even with the added smidgeon of corn masa flour.
Carolyn: Cheez-It Twisterz, Cheddar Jack and White Cheddar were all less-than-exciting slight variations on the familiar orange cheese cracker. Cheez-It Fiesta is a real reinvention. These are rectangular, instead of square, and thinner than regular Cheez-Its, but extraordinarily strong in both cheese and Mexicali tastes (the latter, from the corn, cheese and spices they contain). In fact, Cheez-It Fiesta is more or less a Cheez-It/Doritos hybrid with the richness of Cheez-Its and the easy snackability of Doritos.
Muir Glen Organic Soup. Hearty Tomato, Savory Lentil, Classic Minestrone, Homestyle Split Pea, and Garden Vegetable. $2.69 to $2.99 per 19-ounce can.
Bonnie: All five of these new Muir Glen Organic Soups are nicely seasoned. The Classic Minestrone, for instance, has a subtle flavor of fennel seed that I adore. All are modest in calories and fat, but like most all soups, are also high in sodium, with about 900 to 1,000 milligrams of sodium per cupful. The split pea contains the most fiber, with a massive 11 grams per cupful. I recommend any of these to warm your body and soul on a cold winter's day.
Carolyn: Muir Glen seems to have taken some lessons from Healthy Choice in crafting this line of organic soups, unfortunately. Memo to the chefs at both companies: Healthy and natural foods actually need more spicing — not less — because they're largely missing the fat and sugar that give flavor to processed foods. Most of these are boring. Undercooked peas and beans are another problem. (The sole exception is the mildly flavorful and appropriately cooked Savory Lentil.)
The big chunks of fresh-tasting veggies are the most positive attribute. But that's not enough to make up for this line's other deficiencies. Are you sure you ate the same soups that I did, Bonnie?
Bonnie Tandy Leblang is a registered dietitian and professional speaker. Carolyn Wyman is a junk-food fanatic and author of "Better Than Homemade: Amazing Foods That Changed the Way We Eat" (Quirk). Each week they critique three new food items. © Universal Press Syndicate