Healthy Recipe Doctor: Taste Test Tuesday: "JocaLat" Bars from LaraBar

Not your average chocolate bar!

If you are imagining biting into a Hershey's or Snickers bar...you probably aren't going to like this new, healthful organic chocolate food bars by LaraBar. If you have an open mind and generally like the taste of a lightly sweetened cocoa powder...you might think these bars are the best things since sliced whole wheat bread!

Don't let the first ingredient scare you off though. For the JocaLat Chocolate Mint bar - it's organic dates. The second ingredient is organic almonds and the third and fourth ingredients deliver you to your chocolate fix; organic cocoa mass and organic cocoa powder.

For perhaps my favorite of the bars - Chocolate Coffee, the ingredient list is organic dates, organic walnuts, organic hazelnuts, organic cocoa mass, organic cocoa powder, organic cashes, and organic coffee.

Let me just tell you, dates never tasted this good to me! I would never have known the first ingredient was dates had I not read it on the package.

The nutritional analysis varies by the bar flavor but here is the data on my two favorite flavors:

Chocolate Mint 1 bar =
190 calories
9 g fat
2 g saturated fat
5 g monounsaturated fat
1.5 g polyunsaturated fat
25 g carbohydrate
5 g protein
5 g fiber
10% Daily Value for vitamin E and magnesium

Chocolate Coffee 1 bar =
190 calories
11 g fat
2 g saturated fat
3 g monounsaturated fat
5 g polyunsaturated fat
24 g carbohydrate
4 g protein
5 g fiber
8% Daily Value for iron, vitamin B6, and magnesium