Day 38: Healthy Snack for the Sweet Tooth

It's that time of the week to share with you a store bought sweet snack that I enjoy and keep in my kitchen.  This week I decided on Weight Watcher's Dark Chocolate Raspberry Ice Cream Bars.  I first bought these about a year ago when Thomas was participating in a Weight Watchers program offered through his job.  He was counting points and these were easy since the points were already calculated and they were only 2 points each.  I tasted one and they were delicious.  I love the combination of raspberry with the dark chocolate.  I have not always been a fan of dark chocolate. Since I kick started my healthy lifestyle 5 years ago, I have grown to like it as well as other foods that I would have never eaten!  I don't want to eat a whole dark chocolate bar, but in combination with other flavors, it is yum.  These are just the right size and only 80 calories each!

I want to share a few words of advice regarding buying "light" ice cream products vs. the regular full fat/calorie versions.  The "light" ones always cost more, but they may not be as good as they make it appear.  Always compare serving sizes and calories.  Some products may advertise fewer calories, but in reality, they have only cut the portion size.  You could just buy the regular at a lesser cost and only eat a smaller portion size.  Also, some of the calorie differences are very minimal, so in that case I might just choose the least expensive.  Dr. Oz suggests choosing light ice creams that are slow churned, to mimic the full fat versions. This advice can apply to any product in the grocery store, not just ice cream.  Anytime they remove fat or sugar, they have to replace it with something else, usually artificial sweeteners or sodium.

Next time you are standing in front of the ice cream freezer, I hope you are able to make a more well informed decision or at least know where to start looking!!