Dark chocolate is the darling of the day.  If you watch the health news, dark chocolate is one of those quirky "things that you love which are also good for you," like red wine.  To quote About.com's hyperbole, dark chocolate "contains many of the benefits of dark vegetables.  These benefits are from flavonoids, which act as antioxidants."

The hype is that antioxidants protect you against free radicals, which cause aging.  Couple little problems with this: free radicals don't play as big a part in aging as we originally thought; antioxidants don't foil free radicals as well as we originally thought; flavonoids aren't very effective as far as antioxidants go; and dark chocolate doesn't have as many flavonoids as other (healthier) sources.

So basically, all of these claims are bunk.  But you know, aside from that.

The truth is that eating dark chocolate won't prevent you from growing old.  I know you will be shocked to hear it, but it's true!  It's yummy, though.  And one side effect of this dark chocolate health hype is that dark chocolate is more available in America than ever before, and in a much wider variety.  

(I remember when dark chocolate M&Ms were released in conjunction with the first new Star Wars movie.  They were so unusual that I drove to six different stores before I found any.  When I did locate a source I bought ten bags, and sold nine of them on eBay for a tidy profit.  True story!)

Dark Chocolate Raisinets are an excellent example of the snacking benefits of this wacky stupid health craze.  But they can't just say "Hey, it's Raisinets but in dark chocolate, yummy!"  No, instead the box has to tout two separate health benefits.  "30% Less Fat than the leading chocolate brands," and "Natural Source of Fruit Antioxidants."

That's right: the raisins in Raisinets now count as a serving of fruit, apparently!  I like the phrase "fruit antioxidants."  Now it is true that raisins rank high on the list of antioxidants.  But seriously, if you want to help prevent cancer and lower your blood pressure, you should just eat raisins.  Not Raisinets.

As for the fat claims, they are fairly accurate.  But as with other "low fat" candies, it's more than made up for with sugar.  One serving of Dark Chocolate Raisinets (1/4 cup) may have only 8 grams of fat, but it has 32 grams of sugar.

All that logical left brain scientific fact-y stuff aside, these are really delicious.  I would have difficulty going back to regular milk chocolate Raisinets after trying these.  The dark chocolate is mellow with a slight bitter taste, which is complemented well by the taste of the raisins.  Just the smell of the box itself is wonderful; the aroma is earthy and dark, and perfectly balanced.

And for some reason, the dark chocolate coating makes that funny raisin grit seem appropriate.  What IS the grit in Raisinets?  I assume it's little bits of stem or erstwhile grape seeds.  I encountered about one piece of grit in every five Raisinets.  This is disturbing with the milk chocolate, but the dark chocolate version just tastes like grit is appropriate.  I can't make any more sense out of it than that.