Delicious? yes... Healthy? no (Mars Maltesers)

Member Name: Emily_09

Product:	Mars Maltesers
Date:	27/09/09 (73 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Taste delicious, not too expensive

Disadvantages: High in fat

Anyone scrolling through my reviews must think that all I do is eat chocolate! This isn't true (well not really!) but I do love a bit of the sweet stuff. Through my experiences with different chocolates I have become a bit of a connoisseur and love varying my weekly treats.

Believe it or not though, I used to eat extremely healthy, to the point where it was a bit obsessive, and stopped eating Malteasers after vowing to eat only wholesome foods. Thankfully after becoming a bit too obsessed I decided to revert back to a balanced diet that included a bit of everything, including chocolate. Recently I rediscovered my love affair with Malteasers and am now making up for not eating them!

Malteasers are little balls of crunchy honeycomb covered in creamy Mars chocolate. When you first put one into your mouth the first thing you taste is the chocolate and although in my opinion Mars chocolate doesn't taste as nice as Cadburys, it is still very enjoyable, not to mention moreish! The honeycomb in the centre is very crunchy but isn't too hard that you feel like you're going to break your teeth on it like with some honeycomb. If you bite one of these in half you can actually see the little bubbles of air in the honeycomb that make it so light and crisp.

The only bad thing about the taste of these is that sometimes the centre is unexpectedly hard and when you bite down on it expecting it to be soft, you get a bit off a shock. I have also had Malteasers that have no honeycomb in the middle and are just pure chocolate which I don't really mind but they can be a bit unreliable!

There are two different ways to eat Malteasers and of these, in my opinion, only one is acceptable. The best way to eat these is to suck the chocolate off them before biting into them and crunching the honeycomb. This makes them last much longer and allows you to appreciate the delicious taste of each separate part. The other way is just to crunch them straight away and if you are one of these people then shame on you! Crunching these makes them last all of 2 minutes and is a waste of a good treat!

The Malteasers come in a red packet with their name on the front in white writing and pictures of the sweets themselves on the front to make your mouth water. The packet is very noticeable on the supermarket shelf so you should have no trouble finding it. The only problem with the smaller packets is that they aren't resealable so you just have to eat the whole lot in one go. Oh the horror!

A 37g standard packet contains probably about 15-20 Malteasers and costs about 40p depending on where you buy them. This isn't bad as it is what you'd expect to pay for any other standard sized treat such as a bar of Dairy Milk or a bag of Cadbury's buttons. You can also buy bigger packs for an extra treat or to share which contain about 135g and fortunately (or unfortunately as the case may be) are resealable so you have no excuse for eating a whole pack to yourself! This pack will set you back around £1.60 but may be cheaper or more expensive depending on where you buy it. You can also buy a 120g box of Malteasers which make a great present. These cost about £1.50 but I have seen them for £1 on offer in some shops such as Iceland.

Malteasers are advertised as one of the lighter chocolate options and although at 187 calories per standard bag they are much lighter than a bar of Galaxy for example, they are by no means particularly healthy. One bag also contains 5.6g of saturated fat and 19.7g of sugar which is really quite high. Not only that but if you are eating from a larger bag you have no control over the exact quantity that you are eating and can't easily gauge how many Malteasers you can eat to equal one serving.

Overall, although Malteasers aren't healthy, it's good to treat yourself from time to time and they are a good alternative to chocolate bars which are higher in calories. Enjoy these in moderation and you'll be fine!

Summary: 4 stars, 5 if they weren't so fattening