Organic foods are important to me. I don’t really like putting chemicals in my body if I can help it, and since it’s sometimes unavoidable, I try to find an alternative when I can. Another thing that’s important to me is taking environmental responsibility, for individuals and businesses alike. The final thing that’s important to me and also relevant to this review is chocolate. I love chocolate. Dark chocolate only, please.
That brings me to Next Organics, a brand of snack foods from Tropical Valley Foods. The mission of this company is to provide organic foods that are grown in an environmentally responsible way. You have to love that. I recently got to try three of their dark chocolate products, although they offer a wide variety of foods beyond this. Here are individual reviews of the three I tried.
Dark Chocolate Bananas
I’m not a huge fan of dried fruit. It’s usually laden with sugar and way too sweet. It’s more like candy. That said, these dark chocolate bananas were delicious. The bananas were not like banana chips, but rather soft and coated with a generous layer of dark chocolate. As dried fruit covered in chocolate goes, this also only has 9 grams of sugar for every 1.8 grams of fiber, which isn’t terrible. It did, however, have the highest saturated fat content of all three of these products, but I can tell you that I couldn’t have cared less while I ate them.
Dark Chocolate Almonds
In addition to loving chocolate, I also love almonds, so this one was an instant knock out of the park. Somehow they tasted deliciously salty to me, despite being very low in sodium. I don’t know if it was magic or what, but it put a smile on my face. These had 12 grams of sugar for every 4 grams of fiber, which is the highest fiber content for all three, but also the most sugar. These also had the least amount of saturated fat out of each, despite having the highest fat content. Thanks to the almonds, you get some good fats in a very tasty snack.
Dark Chocolate Pretzels
These were heaven. I don’t even like pretzels, but these were phenomenal. I have a method 
for food reviews, which involves saving some for while I write so that the review can be as accurate as possible, but I’ll be honest – these were gone a while ago. I couldn’t help myself. These had the most salt of all three products, but that’s not saying much at 42 mgs. They also had the most carbs, just edging out the bananas, but sported the least amount of sugar and a sugar-to- fiber ratio comparable to the almonds. Considering it’s chocolate covered pretzels, they aren’t terrible for you.
Now let me say, I started off this review indicating that I love chocolate, so perhaps my review seems biased. However, I don’t typically eat chocolate covered foods like fruit or pretzels because I find them to be typically of poor quality and not even remotely worth the extra calories. Next Organics, on the other hand, has a product line that is not only of the highest quality, but beyond delicious. Make no mistake, these are sweet snacks, but if you have a sweet tooth that you can’t help but indulge from time to time, you’d be doing yourself a favor to make Next Organics your first and only stop.
A final few notes:
- Finding the prices and how to order is pretty confusing on the site, but the products are actually available at a variety of online vendors for a variety of prices, so do some poking around before you buy.
- Also, I see that they offer jerky. I am very curious to see what these guys can do with jerky, which I think is awesome for athletes. I wonder if they want that reviewed, too? I wouldn’t be mad if I had that opportunity. Hint, hint.
Next Organics products are available online:
Dark Chocolate Bananas are $55.75 for twelve 4 oz bags or $5.59 per individual bag.
Dark Chocolate Almonds are $54.61 for twelve 4 oz bag or $5.59 per individual bag.
Dark Chocolate Pretzels are $60.37 for twelve 4 oz bags or $5.59 per individual bag.
