The First Thing You Should Do with a New Bag of Dried Beans

Healthyish Loves It is our weekly column where we tell you about the stuff we can't live without. See our past recommendations here !

My love affair with these perfectly chewy, chocolate-covered vegan candy bars started in the usual way: an Instagram doomscroll stopped in its tracks, followed by an impulsive shipment of all four flavors, and the fluttery suspense before meeting in person.

Unlike internet dating, Gigantic did not disappoint in real life: the Salted Peanut —filled with coconut milk caramel(!), studded with toasty nuts, and dipped in fair-trade dark chocolate—tastes much like a Snickers. The Banana Pecan is ripe and rich like fresh banana bread, the Almond Horchata is unimaginably cinnamony, and the Hazelnut Cafe , as one reviewer put it, is “a healthy alternative to eating a jar full of Nutella.”

Now, in the rubble of life lessons hard-won is this one: What at first seems good for me is quite often the opposite. In life and confectionary, crushes can be fickle. So, it was with a good amount of skepticism that I put my first batch of Gigantic bars to the test—I asked myself, Is this relationship sustainable in the long run?—before offering them a permanent place in my fridge.

The answer was, shockingly, yes. With only 7 grams per serving, Gigantic’s “sorta sweet” bars are incredibly low in sugar—without relying on gross-tasting artificial sweeteners. For comparison, a Mars bar clocks in at 60 g. And because the sweetness—which primarily comes from small amounts of brown and cane sugars—isn’t as heady, the other flavors are more pronounced. More peanut. More hazelnut. More banana. No games, just the real deal.

I’d be lying if I said that Gigantic’s attractive retro packaging wasn’t part of the appeal. It’s reminiscent of old-school candy, rather than something you’d find in the health food aisle, which founder Stu Davidoff says was by design. So your life partner happens to be super cute? Bonus!

By now Gigantic and I are way past that fling thing. This Valentine’s Day, you’ll find my boyfriend and me enjoying a ‘chocluterie’ platter of all four flavors. We’ll slice a variety pack into cubes, then laze about on the couch popping them into each others’ mouths like we’re two gods in a Botticelli painting. It actually sounds sorta sweet, right?

Variety Pack of Candy Bars

Source : food