Peter Paul Mounds
Dark Chocolate, Coconut Filled

Mounds is a candy bar with a sweet shredded-coconut center, covered with dark chocolate. The individual pieces are (in most versions) about .9 ounces each. And the most common package contains two of those pieces.

The bar was introduced in 1920. That's right, getting close to 100 years old! After a not-unusual series of corporate buy-outs and so forth, it's now produced by Hershey's.

It has a sibling, Almond Joy, which differs mainly in having milk rather than dark chocolate and in having an almond atop each piece, under the chocolate. As a 1970's advertising jingle put it, "Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't."

When my choice is between this and Almond Joy, I have trouble deciding. Because I prefer dark chocolate (Mounds), but I also prefer with almonds (Almond Joy). Oh well, this should be my toughest decision of the day.

Looking for something you can chew on for a while after the sugar and chocolate are all gone? The shredded coconut will solve that problem. Fiber. It pretty much never dissolves.

I like this bar's taste. And I like the dark chocolate. But from an enjoyment perspective, my feelings are mixed. Even though I enjoy the taste, I'm not really a fan of chewing on shredded coconut. But that's just me. Nutritionally it's fine, and you may love it.

Ingredients and Nutrition

This where the comparison with Almond Joy gets interesting. This bar has "just" 17 ingredients, versus its sibling's 24. They both have the same chemicals (PGPR, sodium metabisulfite and sulfur dioxide). But this bar does not have partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. On that basis, I have to give it a higher nutrition score.

From a nutritional perspective, I can't recommend eating these very often. To me the long and chemical-containing ingredients list is a warning flag. Still, given the absence of hydrogenated, I have to prefer Mounds over Almond Joy. Besides, it has darker (which is to say, more) chocolate. So that's a nutritional plus too.

The calorie total for the two pieces is 230, with 120 of them (52%) from fat.

INGREDIENTS:

CORN SYRUP;
SEMI-SWEET CHOCOLATE(
   •   CHOCOLATE;
   •   SUGAR;
   •   COCOA;
   •   MILK FAT;
   •   COCOA BUTTER;
   •   SOY LECITHIN;
   •   PGPR, EMULSIFIER);

COCONUT;
SUGAR;
SALT;
NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR;
HYDROLYZED MILK PROTEIN;
SODIUM METABISULFITE, TO MAINTAIN FRESHNESS;
SULFUR DIOXIDE, TO MAINTAIN FRESHNESS;
CARAMEL COLOR;
MILK.

Ingredients quantity = 17

I paid $1.19 for this 1.75 ounce bar. For comparison purposes, that's $10.88 per pound, just a smidgeon above the average pricing for popular chocolate.

I'm giving this my personal score of 3.7 out of 5 stars for Overall Enjoyment, 2.2 for Nutrition, and 3.5 for Value. Keep in mind this is just my personal opinion. Your mileage may vary, and there's no accounting for taste.

Now you know what a Mounds bar is.
Any questions? You know where my Contact Page is!

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More than 60 million tons of coconuts are produced each year, with over half grown in the Philippines and Indonesia. (UN FAO)

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