Glucoholic - Sugar Free Snacks

Sugar Free Jolly Rancher Hard Candy is one of the best sugar free snacks we’ve reviewed here at glucoholic.com. Hershey’s sugar free version of the extremely popular Jolly Rancher brand is an excellent addition to their sugar free lineup, with a burst of fruit flavor that rivals it’s sweet cousin’s.

Our friends over at candyaddict.com have a rundown of the original Jolly Rancher flavors. We were pleased to see that the four flavors of the sugar free version were not a great departure from the five of the original Jolly Ranchers. The sugar free version loses a cherry flavor and replaces blue raspberry with plain raspberry. Each of the four tasted wonderful and sweet. Sugar Free Jolly Ranchers are definitely going on The Glucoholic’s preferred sugar free snacks list, and we highly recommend it.

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The folks at Wrigley’s appear to be getting the message. People want more sugar free snacks. We had the pleasure of reviewing Wrigley’s Creme Savers Sugar Free Strawberry & Creme hard candies recently, and we highly recommend them. From the moment you pop these little treats in your mouth you feel like you are eating a thousand calorie dessert. The blending of strawberry and creme is wonderful, and a bit creamier than average, giving the candy a heavier feeling that is very satisfying.

The candies come individually wrapped. Serving size is five candies, but we seriously doubt you will need five to feel satisfied. Each serving contains 45 calories, 1.5 grams of saturated fat, 35mg of sodium, and about 7 grams of digestible carbohydrate. The product does have quite a bit of sugar alcohol, so the usual laxative effect warning is applicable.

One of the most interesting sugar free snacks we’ve reviewed in a while is Sugar Free LifeSavers Sorbets. They come individually wrapped in cherry, raspberry, and strawberry flavors. The interesting part about these candies is that they are incredibly tart. So much so that we had difficulty telling the three flavors apart! We expected fruit flavors given the name of the product. However, the confusion over which flavor was which quickly gave way to disbelief at the amount of tart flavor these little guys provide. If you want that “fresh feeling” after a meal then we highly recommend picking up a bag and trying them out - they are not your usual after dinner mint.

Sugar Free LifeSavers Sorbets do qualify as a sugar free snack, but be careful to stay under the recommended serving size of 4 candies. They are sweetened with aspartame and 14 grams of sugar alcohol per serving. Overeating can lead to laxative effects. Normally we shy away from products sweetened with aspartame, but we’re glad we took a chance on this one. The powerful tartness covers up any bitterness that might have been noticed otherwise. Each serving contains 40 calories, and given the tart flavor we were pleasantly surprised to find 0 grams of sodium! Diabetics should manage portions and check blood sugars with all those sugar alcohols. The packaging lists the net carbs at 1 gram, but you’re more likely to see a net effect of about 8 grams of carbohydrate.

Sugar free cookies make up a fairly small portion of the cookie market. That’s why it’s always a pleasure to stumble upon a fine cookie like Joseph’s Sugar-Free Pecan Shortbread Cookies. This sugar-free version of a cookie classic is a crisp, great tasting snack. Though smaller than your garden variety packaged cookie, the one thing that’s not small is the taste.

We noticed several interesting things about the packaging of Joseph’s cookies. The bag is without the normal “tray of cookies”. Probably because the cookies are not large enough to stand up in trays, but The Glucoholic has always found these trays to be an annoyance when trying to reseal and store cookies, and a royal waste of plastic. The bag also tells the story of Joseph and his quest to create cookies that diabetics can eat. Almost hidden on the side of the bag are instructions for making the cookies more soft, which surprisingly enough reduces to “wrap it in wet paper towels and put it in the microwave for 15 seconds.” Of course we had to try this out. The process does not produce hot cookie sheet softness, but the cookies were softer than right out of the bag. Try it for yourself!

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Welcome to another installment of “Read Your Labels Carefully”. Murray Sugar Free Creme Cookies are sugar free, but definitely not low carb or low calorie. Diabetics and low carb or low calorie dieters should be wary of the significant amount of enriched flour in these cookies, especially since the serving size is three relatively small cookies.

To be fair to the Murray Cookie company, the cookies do not contain any sugar. They also taste very good. Let’s repeat that - they taste very good. So stop eating after three. It will be hard, but so is bypass surgery. Seriously, the slight lemon flavor of the crisp wafer combined with the sweet creme center make this an excellent cookie by any other measure. Kudos to Murray for using Splenda to sweeten these cookies.

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