Wherein we praise modern flavor engineering
Normally I wouldn't dedicate a whole blog entry to something as trivial as a fudge bar (as you know, I prefer weighty issues like mermaid carcasses and how many time my desk fan's blade has rotated) but I was recently taken very much by surprise and felt like sharing.
Several months ago I came across a box of Healthy Choice fudge bars in my girlfriend's freezer, and figured, well, how bad can they be? They were quite good, and I decided I'd buy my own box. However, my local Safeway, being a mediocre example of the genre, didn't have any--plus, when I picked up the actual Fudgsicles box, I noticed that Healthy Choice was only saving me 10 calories per bar. Screw 'em, I thought. For 10 calories, I'll eat a real Fudgsicle. But when I got them home, I was in for a rude shock.
Fudgsicles suck.
Where the Healthy Choice bars are creamy, Fudgsicles are icy. Where the Healthy Choice bars taste more or less like chocolate pudding, Fudgsicles taste like someone ran a bottle of Yoo-Hoo through a copy machine, faxed the copy, then shoved a stick in the fax and froze it. Ever accidentally bought "ice milk" instead of ice cream, or Schlitz instead of Guinness? It's a difference on a similar scale.
Maybe it's because I never ate Fudgsicles as a kid (what, your parents didn't think that carob was an appropriate substitute for chocolate?) and therefore don't have the nostalgia factor influencing my taste buds. On the other hand, have you actually gone back and watched ALF? That show is terrible.
Several other brands of similarly-lackluster fudge bars later, it would appear that Healthy Choice has done a rather remarkable thing: they've improved upon the canonical fudge bar while actually shaving off calories. I presume no particular chocolatiering virtue on their part--presumably the flavor-chemists in New Jersey have simply figured out a better way of using xanthan gum or some such--but hey, it's tasty.
P.S. Almost forgot to mention the best part: they're incognito. A bright yellow box of Fudgsicles will zoom right out of the freezer whereas the green Healthy Choice box gives many a junk-food-savvy young 'un pause. You can hide them right in plain sight.