Cocoa Addict

by Elizabeth Sanchez

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Natural Hershey's Cocoa
CALORIES: 20
CARBS: 3 g
PROTEIN: 1 g
FIBER: 1 g

Surprise: The plain, unsweetened cocoa your mom bakes with also makes the best hot chocolate. To whip up a cup, just mix some artificial sweetener with milk, add a scoop of cocoa, and nuke until warm. It's cheaper than buying a mix, and since you make it yourself, you know what you're getting.

Ghirardelli Unsweetened Cocoa
CALORIES: 15
CARBS: 3 g
PROTEIN: 1 g
FIBER: 1 g

A superclose second place, Ghirardelli Cocoa is designed for baking, but it also tastes great mixed with milk. Its fudge-like, richer taste is somewhat more bitter than Hershey's - but worth drinking. (Since this is high-end chocolate, it's also a tad more expensive than the others we tried.)

Swiss Miss Chocolate - no sugar added
CALORIES: 60
CARBS: 10 g
PROTEIN: 2 g
FIBER: 1 g

Perfect for the office or anywhere you have to resort to a packet, Swiss Miss tastes like the hot chocolate we all grew up with. Even when made with water, it has a buttery, rich, homemade taste. Had the stuff not been so darn thin and watery, it most likely would have done even better in our rankings.

Nestle Nesquik - no sugar added
CALORIES: 40
CARBS: 7 g
PROTEIN: 1 g
FIBER: 1 g

The best word to describe Nesquik? Typical. This is the same slightly tart, frothy hot chocolate you get in gas-station vending machines across the country. It's a bit gray, a bit off in flavor (we got a distinct apple-strudel vibe), but not at all unpleasant. You can still do a lot better, though.

Swiss Miss Milk Chocolate Diet With Calcium
CALORIES: 25
CARBS: 4 g
PROTEIN: 2 g
FIBER: 1 g

Even though this hot cocoa had plenty of promising foam and looked deep, dark, and chocolaty good, we still found Swiss Miss Diet a major disappointment. Imagine the bastard stepchild of a bowl of leftover Cocoa Krispies milk mixed with a shot of butter-flavored maple syrup. Blech!

Hershey's Syrup Sugar Free
CALORIES: 15
CARBS: 5 g
PROTEIN: 0 g
FIBER: 0 g

Horrible! Even though we were thrilled to find a sugar-free chocolate syrup on the market, words can't describe how bad this stuff is. But we'll try anyway: Think rank, sour milk with barely a hint of chocolate flavor. Not even whipped cream and marshmallows could help out this monstrosity.

* Nutritional info based on mix alone. All samples were made with skim milk.