The Good: Excellent flavor, Very nutritious.
The Bad: A little pricey
The Basics: The Dark Chocolate Over Roasted Almonds from Blue Diamond make a healthy, traditionally salty, snack into a sweet, desirable treat!
While I worked for several weeks to eat healthier, the truth is the last week, I have been letting myself go. No, I am not suddenly eating whatever I want and going crazy on the foods I know are bad. But I am not keeping up with the food log I was doing on CalorieCount, because I don’t like the changes they made to the interface (I shall never understand why so many good ideas get destroyed by people who want to change what works well!). So, while I have been monitoring my sodium less, I have still been trying to eat healthy, especially when it comes to snacking. That means, I have been eating a lot of nuts like the Blue Diamond Butter Toffee Almonds (reviewed here!) that my wife and I picked up at the beginning of the month. At that time, we also bought the Dark Chocolate flavor of Blue Diamond’s Oven Roasted Almonds, which suited me just fine as I am a huge fan of dark chocolate!
More than any other snack I have had in recent memory, the Dark Chocolate Oven Roasted Almonds pleasantly surprised me as completely living up on the flavor front while providing a very nutritious snack that assuaged my guilt over not being as diligent as I ought to on monitoring what I consume!
Basics
Blue Diamond Dark Chocolate flavor Oven Roasted Almonds are a ready-to-eat snack that completely reinvents almonds as a sweet snack, as opposed to a salty one. Packaged in an 8 oz. plastic canister, the Oven Roasted Almonds are well protected. After removing the safety seal, consumers have access to the almonds that are dusted with a powder that gives them their Dark Chocolate flavor. The cool thing about the packaging of Blue Diamond Dark Chocolate flavor Oven Roasted Almonds is that the side has a convenient scale and window. Looking through the window, consumers can easily tell just how many servings of the almonds they have left as the canister is marked on the window in 1 oz. intervals! This is a convenient way to tell just how much one is consuming and to better ration these incredible almonds.
Outside their dark frosted appearance, the Dark Chocolate Oven Roasted Almonds look just like ordinary almonds. Each 8 oz. container has eight 1 ounce servings easily dispensed through the flip-top lid.
Ease Of Preparation
These are roasted nuts, so preparing them is as easy as opening the canister they come in and consuming them. There is no trick or work needed to eat Dark Chocolate flavor Oven Roasted Almonds.
Taste
The Dark Chocolate Oven Roasted Almonds smell deliciously like dark chocolate. Something about the almonds underneath the chocolate makes the dark chocolate smell warm and inviting. As one who loves dark chocolate, I generally do not need an invitation to anticipate dark chocolate, but smelling the Dark Chocolate Oven Roasted Almonds for the first time made me salivate!
Fortunately, that eager quality Blue Diamond instilled in me was rewarded with deliciousness! Somehow, Blue Diamond managed to create a rich, full dark chocolate flavor with what looks to be cocoa powder! Because the nuts are not encased in actual dark chocolate, I anticipated something much less robust and dark as these nuts, but Blue Diamond delivers and these almonds are absolutely delicious! For those who do not like the flavor of almonds, the coating and flavoring is so complete that you need not worry about that with these nuts. The almonds serve as a medium to continue the flavor experience when one chews them. Alone or by the mouthful, this is a strangely impressive treat that manages to embody the wonderful flavor of dark chocolate.
Nutrition
After my recent experiences with almonds, I was not surprised that Blue Diamond Dark Chocolate Oven Roasted Almonds are very healthy! A serving is considered 28 grams which is about an ounce (an estimated twenty-four nuts). With the standard recommended serving size, the nuts have 13 grams of fat! That's 19% of the RDA of fat, with 5% of the RDA coming from the one gram of saturated fat! While there is 6% of the RDA of calcium and five grams of protein, these surprisingly full of nutrients. In addition to potassium (180mg) and a surprisingly low amount of salt (only 35 mg sodium!), these nuts have iron, Vitamin E, riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B6, Folate, Magnesium, Zinc, copper, thiamin, phosphorous and Manganese!
The ingredients list for these Dark Chocolate flavor Oven Roasted Almonds is fairly short as well. Blue Diamond are made primarily of almonds, sugar and cocoa powder. There is nothing unpronounceable in these nuts.
Storage/Clean-up
Just as with the preparation, Blue Diamond Dark Chocolate flavor Oven Roasted Almonds candies are low stress when it comes to storage and cleanup. Storage is simple when the nuts are kept in their canister at room temperature or cooler. Kept sealed in their canister, these nuts would not expire until May 22, 2013 (they will NEVER last that long with the way I have been enjoying them!).
Blue Diamond Oven Roasted Almonds are easy to clean up after as well. Simply wash your hands after eating to get any stray flavor dust off. There should be no other residue, but if there is, it may easily be wiped away with a damp cloth.
Overall
Blue Diamond Dark Chocolate flavor Oven Roasted Almonds are flavorful, nutritious and are remarkably satisfying for chocolate lovers who are not fans of nuts!
For other snack reviews, please visit my takes on:
Tostitos Hint Of Lime chips
Special K Cheddar Cheese Cracker Chips
Peeled Organics Apple-2-the-Core
8.5/10
For other food and drink reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!
© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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