Definitely Not For Children! (Kinder Chocolate)

Member Name: Kukana

Product:	Kinder Chocolate
Date:	06/10/04 (3212 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Smooth and delicious, Not too expensive, No E-numbers

Disadvantages: So much fat :-(

There are times when I eat chocolate in moderation, and there are times when I NEED chocolate, any chocolate, at regular intervals. In my more moderate times, I usually stick to small Cadbury bars, the sort that come in multi-packs, and indulge only at weekends.

Recently, however, I was waiting at the supermarket checkout, aware that I was going to need a lot of chocolate in the next few days. I caught sight of some Kinder chocolate, a variety I like very much but rarely buy. It occurred to me that it might be better for me nutritionally to have some of this rather than raiding the family chocolate supply. It's marketed as being good for children; 'kinder' (with a short 'i' sound, to rhyme with 'tinder') is the German word for children. I also like the - perhaps accidental - double meaning in English, since I tend to read the word as meaning 'more kind' - chocolate that's somehow better for me than other varieties.

There are individual small bars of Kinder chocolate, or cardboard packs which contain eight of these bars. The latter was what I chose - it was around 80p, which I thought not bad at all for 100g chocolate. I decided that I could probably eat just one of the little bars each day for a week. The boxes are white and orange, so they tend to stand out; the front shows a boy smiling with sparkling white healthy-looking teeth.

I did glance at the ingredients on the back, and was reassured: they all sounded natural, not an E-number in sight. There's added skimmed milk powder which contains extra calcium, so of course they're not suitable for anyone with lactose intolerance, but then milk chocolate never is. The emulsifier is made of soy lecithin, so anyone with a soya allergy had better avoid these too. But there didn't seem to be any nasties - not even any hydrogenated fat, and certainly no artificial sweeteners. There wasn't a nut warning, but people with serious nut allergies probably need to keep away from most chocolates these days just in case.

Inside the box each bar is individually wrapped but not sealed. They're finger sized - literally. I held one against my index finger, and it was exactly the same length and width, although cuboid rather than cylinder-shaped. There are five little sections inside each bar, making the finger look a little like a wave with curves of chocolate in between each piece. The smell reminds me of Easter Eggs, for some reason - not Cadbury ones, though. Chocolatey and very tempting.

Biting into them is a luxurious experience, and I found myself wondering who would give these to children? What small child, scoffing chocolate, would appreciate the subtlety of taste of this Kinder bar? Even the appearance is attractive, if you take it slowly. The chocolate covering conceals a white centre, which is something like white chocolate but softer. It's not squidgy like a creme egg, though; it's more the texture of the fillings in Thornton's chocolates. It's very sweet, but not sickly. Absolutely delicious, in other words, and I could almost imagine my allegiance switching from Cadbury's if I bought these more often.

So I ate the first one, and it was so moreish I ate the second too. Ahem. That was Friday. Now it's Saturday evening and there are two left. Oops. They're so easy to nibble at, and surely it doesn't matter, because they're so full of calcium and other good nutrition...

Which reminded me that I'd better check the official details. I don't remember Kinder bars having regular nutritional information before, but perhaps they have to include it now due to EEC regulations. It's at the back of the box, in coloured stripes and remarkably small text. I don't think my eyes are particularly bad, but it's almost unreadable, other than the yellow band which tells me that the 100g box contains 10g protein (that's good - must be the extra milk) and the red band that informs me that there's 332mg calcium, and that this is nearly half the recommended daily allowance. Even better.

But I don't like to be defeated by anything, and I did vaguely wonder why the rest of the information was so difficult to read, so I found a magnifying glass. 100g also contains 51g carbohydrate, it tells me. Well that's OK. I don't suppose Atkins adherents are going to eat chocolate, and I have no objection to carbodyrates. It also has 34g fat of which 22g is saturated.

WHAT???

I adjusted the distance and looked again. Maybe it was 2.2g saturated fat. But no, there it is on a dull mauve background making it almost impossible to see with bare eyes - but I hadn't misread it. 22.0g saturated fat in this little innocent-looking packet. Gulp. Even Cadbury Dairy Milk only has 29g fat (18.7g saturated) per 100g. What's more, Cadbury Dairy Milk contains 280g calcium and 8g protein, so it's not as if these Kinder bars really do have a huge amount more 'good' nutrients. Looking back at the ingredients I see, innocently lurking before the emulsifier, 'concentrated butter'. No wonder the texture reminded me of Thornton's.

Conclusions:

Much as I like these, and would give them six stars out of five for taste, I don't think I'll be buying them again for a regular snack. Perhaps a special treat sometimes - I'm sure Thornton's chocolates are even worse as far as fat goes - but I won't fool myself into thinking Kinder bars are better for me than other chocolate.

More worrying, though, is the way that they're marketed at children. I'm sure many parents give these to youngsters assuming they're healthier than Cadbury's. Of course children do need some fat. But they don't need that much saturated fat on a regular basis. So one star knocked off for the high fat content, and another for the deception - it looks to me as if the nutrition information is deliberately small and difficult to read. I wonder how many parents realise that their children would get significantly less fat if they had something like a mini Crunchie bar (only 20g fat and 12.8g saturated fat per 100g) rather than a Kinder finger.

Kinder chocolate is apparently made by Ferrero, the manufacturers of those nutty concoctions that get sold at great price at Christmas, and which are (in my opinion) OK, but nothing special. Seems to me that they've got it wrong, somehow. If Kinder chocolate was packaged in gold foil and marketed as luxury chocolate for adults, it would be a winner, especially with the added calcium. I'd give it the full five stars then.

Highly recommended for a treat. Not recommended at all for regular snacks.

Summary: