Are you a chocolate lover? Does an after dinner treat often pass your lips? Well? Today, on the Nutrition Couch, we review a growing range of chocolate dessert options in the supermarkets. Today. Hi, I'm Leanne Wi and I'm Cusi Burrow and a still astrayas leading dieticians, we bring you the Nutrition Couch product would a weekly chat on new products and old favorites that you can find in your soup markets. Now, Susie, I must say, I really do
like it. There are more and more single serve portioned dessert options in the supermarkets that you say, it really does make portion control and overeating a little bit easier to manage, particularly for a lot of our clients who really do just struggle to stop eating when it comes to the sugar cravings or the chocolate cravings after dinner.
True, one hundred percent. And I find I have a lot of clients who prefer to have a light at dinner so they can have something sweet. And I really like you try and educate about individual serving sizes and choosing something that will give them that satisfaction. So I too like you. I'm a big fan, so I'm quite interested because I'm not overly across these product so this is a good education for myself also.
So we've got three today. It's the first one that we have chosen is the Fancy Plants Chocolate Silky Pot. So this is available at Calls and wil Wors. And I will disclose that I was an ambassador for Fancy Plants last year. No longer am, but I am a big fan of the brand. So I have chosen it today because there are some things that I like specifically
about this product. Now it is four dollars and in that you get two small types, so it's a double serf stat two dollars a serve and often zuosy they go on sale, so they're often you know, thirty forty fifty percent off even so I grab quite a few of them when they are sort of half priced, and it makes it a pretty affordable treat, you know, dollar a dollar fifty a pot. So when we look at the ingredient list, it starts with coconut milk at seventy four percent, and the coconut milk is made up of
water and coconut cream. Next ingredient is sugar, followed by cocoa butter. We've got some thickener, some chickory root fiber, which is the addition of the prebotic fiber they've added in there to support your gut health. Then we've got cocoa powder, vegetable gums, some emulsifiers, some mineral salt, calcium cutrbonate,
it's some natural flavor and some natural preservative. Now, this is made from nearly seventy percent Australian ingredients and it is a vegan product, and it is a golden free product as well. So I really like this because apple ciliacs don't get a whole range of variety these days. So there is a nice little single served chocolate treat
after dinner. It's vegan and it's gooden free as well, So I like that it caters to a whole range of different people, and I really like the addition of the prebiotic fiber which helps to support our gut heals as well. So looking at the nutritional label per serving, we've got five hundred and eighty eight kilodules one gram of protein, eight point one grams of fat. That is because the top ingredient is coconut milk, so it's a
heavy fat based product. Six point three of that is saturated fat obviously the large majority of that because it's coming from the coconut cream. Fourteen point six grams of carbohydrate. It's around about one sort of exchange or one serving of carbohydrates, with ten point eight of that being sugar.
Two point six grams of dietary fiber in total, with two point three of that being preodic five, which is a great little mix, very you know, minimal amount of sodium eight milligrams nothing really and ninety five grams ninety five milligrams of calcium, which actually think is a nice little addition. It's got a small amount of calcium in there, and again being a vegan product, I think is pretty good because a lot of the non vegan based dessert so the ones that use milk would obviously have a
little bit more calcium in there. So I like that the brands made an effort to include a little bit of calcium, a little bit of something that supports your gut health. And also, and it's a high price point because manufacturing these products in a facility that is exclusively you know, vegan and gluten free does come at a cost.
So when you're looking at these sorts of products, they are going to be more expensive because you have to manufacture them on processing lines that are exclusively gluten free. So a few things that I like in this product soozy, but I'm not going to sugar coated. It is a dessert based product. It's not something that we would be recommending every day. It's not something that you like, eat this for great, great health. It is a dessert based product.
But I do like it because you know, it's calorie called. It tastes amazing like it's called chocolate silky pot and it really is just a smooth, beautiful chocolate dessert. Have you tried this one before?
No. I don't love sort of soggy textures in my mouth, so I don't tend to go for mouses and things like that so much. I think it's a really interesting product because you're write it ticks the box on vegan gluten free. It does add calcium, which is always a bonus. We've spoken before about how so many of our plant
based products and diets do lap calcium. I'm interested they've gone for calcium carbonate because we do know that's not overly well absorbed, and I think as time goes on, we'll hear more about the type of calcium it's added to products. I think that for someone with high cholesterol, I would be very reluctant to suggest this as a product just because of that huge load of coconut milk.
Keep in mind that, you know, the first ingredients coconut milk are really heavy saturated fat food, and then the second is sugar. So we're not you know, I think it's got a place for very specific diets, but I think there are better profiles nutritionally. But you know, occasionally, like we've always said, it's just over one hundred and fifty calories per serve. The sugars are coming in just
over to teaspoons, so you know once a week. You know, I wouldn't have a concern, but it wouldn't be on my regular diet plan for any of my clients, just because to me, the positives, which are some as we've described with the fibers and gluten free, vegan, a bit of calcium, don't outweigh the negatives, which is pretty high sugar and definitely high saturated fash.
And it's a great summary. Definitely something that I would still consider retreat and you know, very occasional at that. But if the rest of your diet's healthy and it's whole foods, and you know, you don't really have any medical concerns or issues, I would be happy to include this and I have for my clients because it is a really nice tasting product. I am someone who does like a nice you know, a deserter or a crust it or a muss or something like that. It's beautiful, it's smooth,
that has a great mouth feel. So this is something that I would happily recommend to my you know, general clients who are pretty no medical conditions a couple of times a week as that treat or as that option after dinner. So I thought an interesting product to go through, and it does tick a lot of the boxes for sort of our allergies and our you know, different dietary sort of requirements.
And they've got quite a few, don't they. There's quite a few different varieties in that brand.
Yeah, there's a rice pudding and there's the cheer pudding as well. To be honest, with cheer pudding, I really like that one because of the better fat profile there With the Amiga Freeze. In terms of the plant based Amiga Freeze in terms of the cheer seeds as well. Yeah, so an interesting brand, interesting product, and they do go regularly you know, on sale as well, which.
Is great, especially at the moment with the groceries are so expensive.
Now, the second products I've chosen, We've been requested this one quite a few times, SUSI. So it is the Wicked Sister high protein chocolate pudding. So this is available at Coals and Wools for two dollars fifty per single serve and Aldi for two dollars. So we're just talking about one single serve here and one hundred and seventy grams in the one pudding. So looking at the ingredients, the first ingredient is water. Second ingredient is milk protein concentrate.
That's how they get the really high protein content. Followed
by cream skim milk powder. Again they're just boosting a little bit of the protein using that skim milk powder, cocoa powder, banana purine, which they're getting a little bit of this sweetness from my assume, so no added sugar, chocolate only at one percent, followed by a mulsifiers natural flavors stabilizes munk fruit juice or a natural sweetener in their concentrate, and a non mulsifier and a little bit of salt as well, so a pretty I mean, i'd say,
you know, clean ingredient list despite it being a bit longer, and you know some things like emulsifies and stabilizers in there to keep it shelf stable as it doesn't go off the next day. And it's seventy six percent austray in ingredients are pretty good there as well, and looking at it per serving, So for one hundred and seventy gram little pot, and we're going to do per serving today because I mean, you eat the whole tub. It's
all well and good to compare per hundred grams. But because there's are single serve Susie and I've decided to do what you get per serving because most people wouldn't buy a small top of this any thirty three percent of it to make up the same serving size as
maybe something else. So we think it makes sense to go through what you get in terms of a single tub because people are going to have a really hard time stopping it eighty five percent of the tub if you're trying to make up the same serving size as another product. So per tub for one hundred and seventy grams. You get seven hundred and forty six kilo duels, so higher than the other one. Sixteen point two grams of protein. It's a really decent lack of protein in that small tub.
Seven point four grams of fat with five point one of that being saturated, so we get a very higher profile of the fat and mix there because of the coconut cream. There's a coconut cream. No, it's just it's standard cream, not coconut cream.
Sorry.
Eleven grams of carbohydrate with nine of that being sugar, one hundred and fifty four milligrams of sodium, and it says no gluten detected on the label. But I don't think that means that Celix would be able to consider that gluten free because I think the processing line it may contain traces of so Unfortunately for as Celix, I don't believe this is a product that they should be having even though it has no detectable gluten in there.
So for people with a little bit of a WI TOA or gluten intolerance, I think you'd be fine with this one as there's no detectable gluten. So all in all, it's an interesting product, isn't it, Susie? Like, sixteen grams of protein is a really high whack. I personally haven't tried it, but one of my clients had and she said the tastes wise, she didn't love it because you know, you give that really artificial sweetened taste afterwards, and she said the banana puy in there, like she just couldn't
get past the taste of it. She said that the after taste of the sweetener was just too much for her. So I think nutritionally it looks, you know, fairly strong on paper, but apparently I've heard from two people in our friend and a client that they just couldn't get past that sort of overly sweet artificial sweetener taste at the end.
I'm just looking. So that is a manot hold sweetener nine to six ' five. Yes, they've added to in there, so that's an alcohol sugar.
There's an accol sugar and the monk fruit the natural based sweetener in there as well.
So I am like you, I find it so interesting to me. It's almost a product for people who go to the gym who really want that protein loader.
Most people don't need sixteen grams of protein after they've had it's.
So high protein, so as a reference for meals with perhaps aiming for twenty thirty grams, so to reach that almost in a dessert, you'd be thinking who needs that much protein? Maybe an athlete recovering, a body builder, or someone who had muscle wasted, So an older person who was trying to get a lot of calories or specifically protein and carbohydrate in a small volume of food. So I'm thinking older people might benefit from a product like this.
I'm interested. That's an AUDI product for just two dollars, so it's actually pretty inexpensively and for that much protein. Like to it's sort of equivalent to a tuna for two dollars for sixteen grams of protein. It's actually relatively inexpensive protein. So I certainly wouldn't put it in a dessert category because I don't certainly need my desserts to have sixteen grams of protein a calorie. Wise, it's coming
in sort of one eighty roughly, so not insignificant. But yeah, I think it must be really being marketed to that active person who wants that heat of protein before bear more than anything, especially with the sweetener. Mind you, it's not insignificant and sugars it's still nine grams and I guess where is that coming from?
Banana puro and some of the skim milk powder. Ah, right, some's naturally from the milk.
But there's no fiber listed, so they're not putting any fiber through the banana either. So it's a very interesting product. I can't really see a role for it. I probably wouldn't use it, and given if you said it hasn't tasted great, but if you were looking for inexpensive proteins and weren't a meat eater, for example, and an older Australian, it would be a viable way to get protein and bump your protein up of a meal. You know, you could have a soup in one of these and you'd
be okay. So yeah, I just find it really interesting. I wonder how they're selling.
I find it really interesting because I find it more of like a health halo product, like people automatically think, oh, high protein desert, that's so great. And then you've got meltol in there, the alcohol sweetener in there, plus you've got monk fruit juice concentrate, plus you've got banana puro, so you've got two types, three types of sugars and sweetness acting together. There no wonder. It's like an overly sweet,
almost sickly sweet sort of after taste. And on the front of package labeling you've got high protein and big bold letters, and that at the bottom you've got no added sugar. So I think one would think that this is sort of like a diet's dream that you can need a chocolate pudding that's super high in protein. But there's nine grams of sugar in it, so it's not, as you said, insignificant. It's still a very high sugar. I wouldn't say high sugar. It is a dessert, you know.
We're not trying to say it's not, but it definitely has sort of a more specific role. It's not something that I would be recommending from the average person because I think after you've had dinner, who needs an extra fifteen grams of protein? Not many people at all. So it is an interesting one. I just think we get so many requests from it. I think people look at it and think this is a great alternative for a
dessert because it is so high in protein. But we don't need protein from our desserts, do we that's the thing that I think confuses a lot of people. They just think all protein is all protein is great. But if you're eating a balanced dinner, you don't need fifteen grams of protein in you dessert.
So true, I think I have agree with you. Since protein is written in such enormous writing on the front, it's obviously keen to nab that market. And let's be honest, you know, protein bars, et cetera in the supermarket are targeting a very specific kind of active person, perhaps male female, who want to indulge but really keep their macros in line.
So I don't disagree about the health halo, and I'll be interested to see if they survive in supermarket because we do see these kind of new novel products that come in and out, and really it's tough in supermarkets to see if people actually are buying them, because that's ultimately what we'll determine if they're kept in supermarkets, not whether they're good for you or not. So, yeah, this is relatively new, I want to say that the last couple
of years. So let's see if it survives the test of time and people are actually buying it and enjoying it.
But yeah, I think the taste profile will if you're someone that can't handle a lot of that sort of after sweetness type of taste, which I kind I can't stand it. I don't think that this is probably the product for you. And the third one we've got Susi's
available calls and waters and it's the Neslle Chocolate Moves. Now, I think, just again looking at the front of package labeling, most people would look at that and go oh, Nesle pooh pooh, do you know what I mean, Like it can't can't possibly be healthy, But I just thought it was an interesting one to throw in there, and so again we're going to look at it per serving size, So it's sixty two grams per serving size. It's a double serving, so you get two little pots of moose
in this single sort of container. So you know, just one of them is five hundred and forty three kilodels, so around about one hundred and thirty calories, three grams of protein, seven point three grams of fat, with five point one of that being saturated fat, twelve point nine grams of carbohydrates, with twelve grams of sugar per serve, and twenty eight milligrams of sodium. Now you might think, oh,
twelve grams and sugar is quite high. The Wicked Sister of high protein one was nine and the other fancy Plants one was ten point eight grams of serving per pot. So you know, they were all within a couple of grams of each other. So I wouldn't say that this was just the highest and it was so bad. It's only a gram or two high then the other two. So I think they're all sort of relative from a sugar perspective, and we are comparing chocolate desserts. Sugar coat
that at all. It's a chocolate dessert, They're going to have some form of sugar in there, and as long as we're aware of that, I think that's completely fine, and as long as the wrist of our diet is really nice and balanced, again, I think that it's fine to include a bit of a treat occasionally as well.
So looking at the ingredient list fit SWANSOUSI, we've got milk as seventy eight percent, so it's quite you know, it's quite high, and it's based on milk, so it's a good, you know, wack of calcium to begin with a bit of protein as well, sugar is the second ingredient, followed by water, followed by eight percent milk milk chocolate, followed by cocoa, gelatine, thickeners, emulsifiers, and some vegetable gum
to finish this off. So, I mean it's a pretty clean ingredient label when you look at you know, seventy eight percent milk and eight percent milk chocolate. I mean you're looking at eighty five percent of it just being milk and milk chocolate to begin with, and then there's a little bit of cocoa, cocoa butter, a little bit of thickness and mulsifies again just to make that product sort of shelf stable and make sure it lasts a
little while it doesn't go off the next day. So this one's eighty eight percent austrain ingredients, and they haven't from what I could find online. I haven't listened in terms of any allergies or decorations or that sort of thing. Obviously it contains milk, but yeah, I'm not sure in terms of gluten free, I'm definitely not big because it contains milk. So I think this is an interesting one.
It is quite low calorie, you know, one hundred and thirty calories for a small top of that, and it does have a really nice mouth bull I have tried this one before. You know, the chocolate moose is it is a nice tasting product. You don't get that sweetness after taste that you get with some of the other
products as well. I mean, it's not something that I'd be recommending and writing in meal plans for my clients, but if people really enjoyed it, I don't see a problem with having a little pot of this, a couple of squares of chocolate a sweet biscuit after dinner. I really think that it's up to the individual and what they like. But I can't see a problem with people having this once or twice a week as a bit
of a treat after dinner. I think it's a lower calorie option that could fit nicely as long as we're aware that it is a treat and it's not something we're saying, oh yeah, it's just like vegetables, fill up half your plate with them. It's a chocolate dessert, let's be honest. And I think that it can definitely have a place in some people's diets if that's what they choose to consume and they really like it's.
A fair summary. You know, it's slightly higher than one hundred calorie after dinner snack I like my clients to stick to. But you can see the quality of the product because it's got three grams of protein which is coming from that high proportion of milk. Overall, I agree with you. I think it's a really clean kind of list and for the calories, if you loved it, I do try and get my clients to freeze them so it's a slower eating because what I find with those
mooses is you can eat them really really quickly. So it's quite a small tub and like a couple of spoons, particularly if you use a big spoon's gone is if you freeze it and use a teaspoon, it goes for a lot longer, so you actually save with experience. Now then I've just compared that because that is twelve grams of sugar and the saturated fats reasonably high five to
one grams per served. Because the other chocolate moods I do use is the Pol's Low fat one, which is very very similar but just slightly less calories at just one hundred and eleven almost five grams of protein, but more sugars because they've taken some of the fat out, so they put more sugars in there. So it's like anything you take out one. So I wouldn't say that they're grossly different to say choose one over the other,
other than if you really like it. And that's probably my take home message for any of these products when you're starting to get into more indulgent foods that are not adding a whole lot nutritionally to the diet. They're not part of the core diet. They're adding in something as a treat. It's extra, it's food we don't need, it's discretionary. The message I would give to anyone is that you have to choose something that you get maximum satisfaction out on, otherwise you'll have it and you'll keep
looking for something. So when it comes to that after dinner eating period, spend time thinking about what you really feel like. Do you really feel like a chocolate dessert? Do you feel like a moose? Do you feel like chocolate? Do you feel like a biscuit? Because unless you really satisfy that desire, you will keep eating until you reach it. So, for example, for me, I don't like these kind of products. I wouldn't use my calories on them. I much prefer
something crunchy or actual chocolate. But certainly, if I put the mooses on the client's meal plans, they will choose them at time. And certainly if a client would come to me and say, I love that wicked sister, how can I include it? Or sorry, the fancy pants, I would absolutely be able to incorporate it. So I think it's for me about really spending time deciding what you enjoy most and enjoying it in moderation. And I'm like you, the portion control is very appealing to me, and I
think that's small one with the Nesse moose. And as I said, if you keep it frozen, because they also have a diet one or used to which is lower again but more sweetener through it, so they're out there. But I would suggest, yeah, freezing them so you eat it more slowly and eating them with a teaspoon to really savor that experience with them. If this is your soul food that you really enjoy after dinner, amazing, that's great somewhere, all right, guys. Well, that brings us to
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