Libera – Bitter

Brand: Glico

Cost: 162 yen

Found At: 7-11

It is my thin privilege to state that I don’t believe in “reduced fat” candy. It’s the same reason that I don’t believe in vegetarian bacon. It’s not that these things are bad, but I don’t approve of trying to make one thing into another thing. Inevitably, the imitation will never be as good as the original. There are so many amazing vegetarian/vegan dishes out there – Sichuan green beans, sweet potato fries, hummus, guacamole burritos – that don’t have meat in them and you never miss it. And the same is true with sweets – there’s a world of berries or dates or dark chocolates that are low fat from the start. So why try to make chocolate healthy? It’s just making a worse version of something, which inevitably makes me miss the original more.

But despite my theoretical objections, these “healthy” chocolates are actually not that bad. In fact, they are almost identical in taste and consistency to Hershey’s chocolate – a little waxy, but overall pretty good.  If I didn’t know any better, I would just assume that they were regular, or perhaps slightly cheap, chocolates. I suppose that if I was really struggling on a diet and desperately needed some candy, these would not be my worst option by a long run.

And I really like the sturdiness of these little chocolate cubes. They might not be the most delicious candy on the market, but they seem to me to be the least likely to melt on a really hot summer day – and they are the most likely to provide a solid foundation for a candy house. The holidays are fast approaching, after all, and it’s time to start drafting building plans now.