Monday, December 15, 2008
Science: The Cocoa Experiment
The last few times I have gone shopping (at either Walmart or the regular grocery store), hot chocolate has been on sale. I buy things on sale. Plus it's been cold here (although today it was in the upper 60s - weirdo weather), and I enjoy a nice cup of something warm in the evenings, preferably laced with something (e.g. rum, Kahlua, or creme de menthe). So I decided to experiment and see which hot chocolate I preferred.
Controls: All were the same price and all were Swiss Miss Brand. I tried 5 types (apparently my stores don't have the other 31 available cocoa flavors). I also used water heated via coffeemaker and not milk.
Sensible Sweets, Diet (25 cal) - didn't mix up too well, but over all decent flavor and the fact that it's 25 cal means adding the aforementioned alcohol isn't a super calorie fest. Yay drinking!
Mini Marshmallow (120 cal) - the marshmallows melted super fast. Then it tasted the same as the diet cocoa. Not worth it. Buy the diet and add your own marshmallows (or alcohol), or whipped cream.
Milk Chocolate (120 cal) - this one was actually a bit richer than the diet. A slightly darker flavor. It mixed up better too although I've found if you swirl your cup every so often it catches up most of the sediment.
Sensible Sweets, No Sugar Added (60 cal) - tasted exactly the same as the diet to me. And had a gram of fat where the diet has none. I have no idea why someone would drink this instead of the diet.
Indulgent Collection, French Vanilla (110) - quite tasty. Almost like one of the international foods coffees. Then again, it wasn't that much better than the diet. It had a definite vanilla flavor though, but that just interfered with the rum...I mean chocolate.
Overall, I say stick with the diet cocoa. You can add other stuff to it to suit your taste. I have never had a problem with sweetener flavor, so I might be totally tongue biased. I will hopefully find the other flavors and add to the cocoa experiment...but only if they are on sale.
Next foray into science - taste testing fast food honey mustards.
Controls: All were the same price and all were Swiss Miss Brand. I tried 5 types (apparently my stores don't have the other 31 available cocoa flavors). I also used water heated via coffeemaker and not milk.
Sensible Sweets, Diet (25 cal) - didn't mix up too well, but over all decent flavor and the fact that it's 25 cal means adding the aforementioned alcohol isn't a super calorie fest. Yay drinking!
Mini Marshmallow (120 cal) - the marshmallows melted super fast. Then it tasted the same as the diet cocoa. Not worth it. Buy the diet and add your own marshmallows (or alcohol), or whipped cream.
Milk Chocolate (120 cal) - this one was actually a bit richer than the diet. A slightly darker flavor. It mixed up better too although I've found if you swirl your cup every so often it catches up most of the sediment.
Sensible Sweets, No Sugar Added (60 cal) - tasted exactly the same as the diet to me. And had a gram of fat where the diet has none. I have no idea why someone would drink this instead of the diet.
Indulgent Collection, French Vanilla (110) - quite tasty. Almost like one of the international foods coffees. Then again, it wasn't that much better than the diet. It had a definite vanilla flavor though, but that just interfered with the rum...I mean chocolate.
Overall, I say stick with the diet cocoa. You can add other stuff to it to suit your taste. I have never had a problem with sweetener flavor, so I might be totally tongue biased. I will hopefully find the other flavors and add to the cocoa experiment...but only if they are on sale.
Next foray into science - taste testing fast food honey mustards.
# posted by rjhackman @ 11:06 PM 
