Delicious Sugar Free Candies

If you are on a diet or must cut sugar due to diabetes or another medical condition, your first instinct is to avoid candy. This does not have to be the case. Many diabetic (sugar-free) candies are available in area stores. They taste just like the real thing yet contain no sugar. Before you attempt to give up your sweet tooth, try a sugar-free alternative.

A few years ago, Hershey's chocolate cam out with a line of sugar-free chocolate products. They now offer many of their candies in sugar-free versions. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, White Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups, Hershey's Chocolate, Hershey's Chocolate With Almonds, York Peppermint Patties, Hershey's Dark, Twizzlers, and Jolly Ranchers are all available in sugar-free versions that taste like the originals. You can find these candies in your local grocery stores. They typically come in bags that offer three servings and cost around $1.99 per bag. The Reese's Sugar Free Peanut Butter Cups and Hershey's Sugar Free Chocolate Bar are now available in individual sized bars for under $1.

If you have a little more money to spend, try Galler's Gourmet Sugar-Free Dark Chocolate Bar with Walnuts. Made in Belgium, this chocolate bar is decadent and leaves you craving more. A three and a half ounce bar costs $9, however, so the price is a little steeper. Most area candy stores have them in stock.

Jellly Belly Jelly Beans come in a variety of sugar-free flavors. (Very Cherry, Tangerine, Green Apple, Juicy Pear, Licorice, Cinnamon, Lemon, Pineapple, Buttered Popcorn, and Strawberry.) The product is sweetened with Splenda (sucralose.) A 3.1-ounce bag retails for $2.49 and is available in many department stores or grocery stores.

Jelly Belly also offers some additional products in a sugar-free format.

Ÿ Their sugar-free Sour Jelly Beans cost $2.49 for a 3.1-ounce bag and come in sour cherry, sour grape, sour apple, sour orange, and sour lemon.

Ÿ Sugar-Free Fruit Slices come in a three-ounce bag that costs $2.49. Flavors on the fruit slices include tangerine, pink grapefruit, lime, and lemon.

Ÿ Jelly Belly Spice Drops come in root beer, licorice, cinnamon, spearmint, and peppermint. The price is the same as the fruit slices.

Ÿ Also for $2.49 for a three-ounce bag are the Sugar-Free Gummi Bears. They come in cherry, grape, lemon, pear, raspberry, tangerine, and watermelon.

Ÿ Sugar-Free Cola Bottles cost $2.49 for a three-ounce bag.

Ÿ Finally, Jelly Belly offers Sugar-Free Gummi Inchworms. A three-ounce bag costs $2.49 and comes in pineapple-grape, cherry-lemon, orange-lime, and strawberry-raspberry.

If you have not heard of Liberty Orchards Aplets & Cotlets, you should check them out. They are sold online at Amazon.net and in some Costco locations. The candies cost $11.99 for a small box. These fruity delights are sugar-free mixtures of apricots and apples with walnuts. They are some of the greatest candies on the market. Though the price is high, the candies are made by hand. Amber Lyn Chocolates offers a wide variety of sugar-free truffles. The truffles can be mixed or sold in individual flavors (mint chocolate, chocolate, hazelnut, cherry nut, orange, dark chocolate, or dark chocolate raspberry