Is Hershey’s actually the healthiest Milk Chocolate Bar under $3?

The words healthy and chocolate don’t usually fit well together and while you might inclined to think that chocolate bars are healthier than regular candy bars, in reality they are both just as bad. On our journey to finding the healthiest milk chocolate bar, we mostly focused on their calories since this was an easy and tangible number to compare. We also looked at the sugar and fat levels as well.

If you want to know how we ranked these chocolate based on taste then checkout the results in our previous post.

Before you read any further, checkout this reddit poll to see which brand people thought was the healthiest.

In terms of main ingredients, all of these chocolate bars had sugar and cocoa butter as the first two ingredients followed by milk powder and cocoa.
We found it interesting that some of the bars contained sunflower and soy lecithin, which we later discovered was an emulsifier used to make the chocolate easier to work with. Also, the terms cocoa mass, unsweetened chocolate or chocolate, and chocolate liquor (does not contain alcohol) are all the same thing.

Since each of these chocolates had different serving sizes, we calculated the numbers at 100 grams to make them comparable.

Keep reading to discover which milk chocolate bar you should indulge in, and which one you should steer clear of for the sake of your health.

8. Great Value

550 Calories: 30g fat, 60g sugar which is 90% of this chocolate bar.

Walmart’s generic brand didn’t fare well coming in at last place with the highest amount of sugar and highest calories. They also included butterfat and whey powder which was not present in any of the other bars. Surprisingly, the reddit poll showed Great Value as being the healthiest.

7. Presidents Choice

550 Calories: 35g fat, 50g sugar which is 85% of this chocolate bar.

Loblaw’s higher end private label actually had the lowest amount of sugar on our list, but this was quickly overshadowed by having the highest amount of fat. One potential reason for the higher fat content might be the additional Milk fat included in the ingredients.

6. Compliments

550 Calories: 32.5g fat, 52.5g sugar which is 85% of this chocolate bar.

Sobey’s private label brand didn’t do so well when it came to calories. They also wrote Milk ingredients instead of Milk powder which makes it impossible to figure out what is actually being used. They also had hazelnuts on the list which is a bit surprising.

5. Lindt

533 Calories: 30g fat, 57g sugar.

The popular Swiss chocolate manufacturer had some interesting ingredients on their list like: lactose, barley malt extract (which means those with Celiac disease or with gluten intolerance can’t eat it), and was one of the very few to write artificial flavour is hilarious because I feel like most of these cheaper bars all have artificial flavouring. Hats off to Lindt for honesty.

4. Selection

526 Calories: 32g fat, 55g sugar.

Selection is Metro’s budget friendly private label brand. Other than milk ingredients, there was nothing notable in the ingredients list and calorie wise it was middle of the range. Just be careful if you have nut allergies because their may contain list contained almost every nut in existence.

3. No Name

525 Calories: 25g fat, 60g sugar.

If you read our other post you’ll know that this bar tasted absolutely awful. It was also the only bar with a weird grainy texture which I think might be because of the really low fat content that it has, but that is just a guess. No Name actually had the lowest fat content (but also the highest sugar content along with great value). While the calories and fat are low for this one, we would recommend staying away from Loblaws’ budget private label brand when it comes to milk chocolate bars.

2. Cadbury

524 Calories: 31g fat, 55g sugar.

The popular British chocolate maker’s bar fared well in the calories department. They used skim milk as well as milk powder and also wrote that they used artificial flavour. Interestingly, they also used butter oil which was a bit odd.

1. Hershey’s

500 Calories: 28g fat, 56g sugar. Check the ingredients here.

Not only did Hershey’s rank highest on our taste test but it also had the fewest calories making it the healthiest milk chocolate bar on our list. It also had the highest amount of protein, at 10 grams, and calcium, at 250mg. Additionally, they used polyglycerol polyricinoleate which is supposed to be an emulsifier but considering they also included lecithin on the list I’m a bit puzzled with this addition.

Conclusion

First, I need to highlight that the difference between the worst and best bar was only 50 calories for each 100 grams. Second, none of these bars are healthy at all since they’re almost entirely just sugar and fat. That being said, they have varying combinations of sugar and fat so depending on your diet goals some may work out better for you. It was also interesting seeing all the different ingredients that were unique to each bar like hazelnuts in Compliments or vanilla extract in No Name. For those with Celiac disease, gluten intolerance, or nut allergies, it really important to make sure that you check the ingredients carefully and especially the “may contain” section.

If you have any other cool facts about these chocolate bars let us know in the comments section below!