Candy’s Less-Empty Calories

Year after year, Ken Kellerhals resolved to lose weight. Year after year, his candy factory did him in.

Bissinger’s Handcrafted Chocolatier makes hundreds of confections in chilly, bare-floored kitchens here. Workers stir copper pots of caramel with long wooden spoons, decorate creams and truffles and toffees by hand, and brush each milk-chocolate bunny to a gloss before wrapping it in foil.

When he bought the company a decade ago, Kellerhals promised his wife he’d eat just one chocolate a day. The reality? “Let’s just say, I sampled a lot more than I should have,” he said.

As 2005 approached, Kellerhals once again resolved to diet. But he wanted to do it without giving up the best his factory had to offer.

And so Spa Chocolates were born.

“Shed your guilt,” the slim yellow box urges. “Treat yourself to good health.”

Inside are seven chocolates, one for each day of the week, each accompanied by an upbeat promise: The almonds in Wednesday’s dark chocolate acorn may stave off heart disease. The antioxidants in Thursday’s sugar-free cherry cordial will keep you looking young.

Each ingredient has been chosen by a dietitian, the package assures, “to give you a week’s worth of health benefits and enjoyment.”

The claims astound -- and distress -- some nutrition experts. True, blueberries are packed with antioxidants, but there aren’t nearly enough folded into Monday’s dark chocolate cup to count as a single serving of fruit, much less improve anyone’s health.

“Candy is candy,” says Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition at New York University.

But Kellerhals is undaunted. And he has the force of a trend behind him.

Supermarkets these days are full of enriched and fortified products, known in the industry as “functional foods.” Certain brands of margarine, popcorn and even orange juice promise to lower cholesterol. Cereals, though studded with marshmallows, contain whole grains to stave off cancer. Eggs are boosted with omega-3 fatty acids to improve heart health.

Sales of such products in the U.S. topped $10 billion last year, according to the market research firm Mintel International. Bakery and cereal products are the top sellers by far. But sweets and treats are coming on fast. In the last five years, manufacturers have introduced 56 snack foods and 42 confections marketed primarily for their reputed health benefits.

Too worn out to work through the evening? Snickers offers up a Chewy Chocolate Peanut Marathon bar, fortified with 16 vitamins and minerals plus soy protein for a long-lasting energy boost.

Feeling your years, and hating it? Chug a few cans b-well, a carbonated soda spiked with grape-seed extract that Hansen’s promises will help you fight off aging. Or try a chocolate Instant Bliss Beauty Bar, from Ecco Bella; it’s supposed to lift your spirits and make your skin look radiant, thanks to antioxidants derived from cranberries, marigolds and algae.

And how’s this for chocoholic heaven: Masterfoods USA has developed a candy bar, called CocoaVia, that it says can lower your cholesterol and improve your blood pressure. But it works best if you eat two a day, every day. Imagine feeling guilty for skipping a snack.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulates only nutritional claims that draw an explicit connection between a particular product and a specific disease. More general claims that an ingredient is healthful -- or that it will curb the appetite or soften skin or make you look younger -- are not subject to FDA approval.

That loophole troubles some nutritionists, who fear that families will mistake fortified junk food for good nutrition.

“It’s the whole foods that really make you healthy -- the fruits and vegetables and whole grains,” said Roberta Anding, a dietitian based in Houston.

As for “healthy” candy? It’s fine once in a while -- if you really enjoy it, Anding said. But if you prefer a gooey caramel cream, make that your once-a-week indulgence. Most confections have so few health benefits that “you might as well go with your absolute favorite instead, as long as you eat just a small amount,” she said.

Such advice does not seem likely to slow the torrent of functional food products.

Nearly half of all women, and one in four men, are dieting at any given time. Candy makers don’t want to lose their business. “They’re looking at ways they can allow consumers to have their indulgences but also get a health benefit,” said Stephanie Childs, a spokeswoman for the Grocery Manufacturers of America.

Or, as Kellerhals put it: “I wanted to have my cake and eat it too. Only in this case, it was my candy.”

Kellerhals, 47, grew up with a box of Bissinger’s on the table each Christmas -- a tradition for many St. Louis families. In 1995, after a career in investment banking, he bought the company with other investors. Since then, he has aggressively expanded sales.

He made the doldrums of July more profitable than Valentine’s Day by joining forces with a farmer who grows enormous raspberries, bigger than cherries. Flown to the candy factory the very day they’re picked, the berries are hand-dunked in chocolate -- then sold at $34 a pound.

Kellerhals also wooed the corporate market, producing white-chocolate lollipops etched with business logos. He recently hired a chief chocolatier, Terry Wakefield, to invent flavors for the 300-year-old company, such as a Champagne Truffle that fizzes in the mouth.

Bissinger’s annual sales have tripled, to more than $6 million, in the last decade.

But along the way, Kellerhals put on some pounds -- not just from too much candy, though he does love the vanilla caramels, but also from too much fast food and too little exercise.

He tried just about every fad diet that came along but was easily discouraged. “I’d eat one piece of chocolate and then figure, ‘Oh, I’ve blown it,’ ” and keep munching away, he said.

Then last fall, Kellerhals had a brainstorm.

He would invent a product that would allow him a daily chocolate fix, but in a carefully moderated dose. He would forgo the empty -- though oh-so-luscious -- calories of buttery creams and sugary caramels. Instead, he’d fill his chocolates with fruits and nuts to sneak in a little extra nutrition.

Dietitian Connie Diekman drew up a list of wholesome ingredients, from apples to turnips. Then Wakefield went to work.

The seven recipes he came up with included tried-and-true confections like a dried apricot (rich in beta carotene for healthy eyes) coated in dark chocolate (containing flavonol for healthy blood vessels). A few were new to Bissinger’s: The dark chocolate cup studded with whole blueberries (for antioxidants) impresses many customers as the most flavorful and original in the box.

The chocolates, which hit the market in mid-October, average 54 calories and 2.7 grams of fat apiece. Kellerhals is quick to emphasize that they’re not diet foods: “We’ve never said, ‘Eat these and you’ll lose weight,’ ” he said.

“There’s no magic here. Eating a few blueberries is not going to make you healthy,” Diekman added. “What we’re saying is if you’re going to have a treat, why not a treat with healthy ingredients?”

Customer Pat Boerner has a ready answer: because that’s not the point of treats.

When she wants to indulge, she wants to indulge. “If I’m going to eat chocolate, I’d just as soon have it be all chocolate,” she said, pondering the selection at a Bissinger’s store the other day.

“Chocolate is fine just the way it is,” Connie Kroemung agreed. “Healthy chocolate is an oxymoron.”

“A marketing ploy,” said Nancy Browning, an unabashed chocoholic.

Despite such detractors, Kellerhals is increasing production, anticipating a surge in demand from New Year’s dieters. Already, he’s sold more than 3,500 boxes, at $15.95 apiece. Most are sold online or by catalog, though a woman recently demanded 40 boxes at once -- to take her through bikini season, apparently -- from the Bissinger’s counter in a St. Louis mall.

In Tampa, Fla., plastic surgeon Dr. Bruce Landon received a box as a promotion for New Beauty magazine. He tasted a chocolate and wasn’t too impressed -- “I ate it on the fly, so I don’t even remember if I liked it” -- but he loved the concept so much, he plans to give them to his patients.

“Sending a big box of chocolates to a liposuction patient is not the right thing to do. This is a better thank-you,” he said.

Spa owner Peggy Mitchusson also promotes the collection to clients; she eats them herself as well, finding that the one-a-day format helps prevent bingeing. (Though she admits it’s sometimes hard to wait for Sunday to enjoy the chocolate apricot, her favorite.)

“I could easily eat the whole box right now,” said Mitchusson, who owns three Face & Body spas in suburban St. Louis. “But if someone is telling me, ‘No, this is the one you’re supposed to have on Monday,’ that helps.”

It’s certainly helped Kellerhals.

He started a harsh new diet this fall: Under medical supervision, he eats just 1,600 calories a day. That means mostly vegetables and protein shakes. But he saves 55 precious calories a day for his Spa Chocolate.

He eats it in the evening, slowly, savoring every morsel. He’s still tempted by the heaps of chocolate at the factory -- the very air in his office smells fattening -- but he says it helps to remind himself that he can dip into the yellow box when he gets home.

“The holidays were tough,” he said. “I kind of wanted to eat Thursday’s and Friday’s chocolates together. But I didn’t.”

Kellerhals has lost 44 pounds so far. And he and Wakefield are already toying with ideas for a second spa line. This time they’d like to see if they could sneak in some vegetables -- maybe a chunk of dense carrot cake coated in chocolate. Or maybe something even bolder, to prove that healthy chocolate is not a contradiction in terms.

“We could half-dip an asparagus spear in chocolate,” Kellerhals suggested

“You know,” Wakefield said, mulling it over, “that wouldn’t taste half-bad.”