Galaxy Light Style Instant Hot Chocolate Review

There is an explosion of new hot chocolate drinks on the supermarket shelves. They’re coming from all the main players including Cadbury, Options and Galaxy. The problem is, they’re all so high in sugar which of course means calories.

Even Options, well known for their wide and delicious range of 40 calorie hot drinks, has decided to join the high cal, high sugar brigade with their luxurious range. It seems that the whole ‘cutting down on sugar’ idea just isn't catching on to some manufacturers!

Anyway, I was searching for one of my favourites – Galaxy Bubbles (reviewed here) but was unable to find any. However, I did spot this new one called Galaxy Light Style which has just 40 calories per cup. I purchased a jar, hoping it might resemble the Galaxy Bubbles.

Galaxy Light Style

Galaxy Light Style is an instant hot chocolate drink packed in a 180g jar. It’s described as ‘Low calorie hot chocolate powdered drink with sugars and sweetener’ and it’s made with Galaxy® Chocolate.

So, sugar and sweeteners doesn’t sound great, but it seems to be the norm with most of these types of drinks, even the low calorie ones.

Inspecting the ingredients, unfortunately Galaxy® Hot chocolate only accounts for (8%) and is fifth in the ingredients list. Low fat cocoa powder is listed as second. See below for the full list.

Looking at the nutrition, sugar content is 30g per 100g. It is high, but is still around half that of other non-low calorie hot chocolate drinks.

The instructions recommend adding two heaped teaspoons (10g) to a cup and adding 200ml of hot water. I followed the instructions, with a slight deviation using my own preferred method of making such drinks. Basically I add the powder to the cup then mix it to a paste by adding some milk – usually unsweetened almond milk to keep the calories down!

This helps give these drinks a creamier consistency and taste. It also gives them a frothy top, which goes a small way to replacing the Galaxy Bubbles frothy top.

Galaxy Light Style low calorie hot chocolate drink

Made this way, I quite enjoyed my Galaxy Light Style drink. I have made it a few times since, as instructed, adding more or less water and no milk. I definitely don’t like it with no milk – far too thin and not chocolatey enough. Plus the teaspoons needed to be really heaped to get a decent flavour.

All in all, it’s not too bad. I do however prefer the Galaxy Bubbles but have a feeling they’re phasing it out since I can only find it at Ocado.

Hmmm, looking at my own nutritional analysis, I've noticed just how high the salt is - 5.33g per 100g. Anything over 1.5g is high. What a shame. I think I’ll have to swap more often to Choc Shot (see review) which doesn't have any salt and has a load less ingredients.

Nutrition per 10g serving: 40 calories, 0.9g protein, 4.9g carbs, 3.0g sugars, 1.7g fat, 1.4g saturates, 0.9g fibre, 0.53g salt.

Ingredients:
Whey Permeate, Low Fat Cocoa Powder, Dried Glucose Syrup, Vegetable Oil, Galaxy® Chocolate (8%) (Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Skimmed Milk Powder, Cocoa Mass, Lactose, Vegetable Fat, Whey Powder, Milk Fat, Emulsifiers: Soya Lecithin, Water, Natural Vanilla Extract), Skimmed Milk Powder, Maltodextrin, Stabilisers (Guar Gum, E466, E340ii, E339ii, E452i), Dried Barley Malt Extract, Salt, Anti-Caking Agent (E551), Flavouring, Acidity Regulator (E331), Milk Proteins, Sweetener (E955), Emulsifier (E471).

Galaxy Light Style is available in most of the larger supermarkets now.

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