Noshu Guilt Free Donuts ? // Product Review

Now this product is not exactly new, but the idea of it is still quite exciting. This week we look at Noshu Guilt Free Donuts to see what all the fuss is about. I first came across this product about 2-3 years ago and was incredibly excited by the idea of a low carb, healthy donut, I mean who wouldn't be right? I'd actually almost forgotten about these until a few of you asked me recently to review them so I swung past Banana Joe's in Marrickville last night, grabbed one of each flavour they had there and tucked right in. The verdict? As Facebook would say… "it's complicated".

So, how do these Noshu Guilt Free Donuts taste?

Whoah, hold up. There's just something I need to address before we go through the regular review criteria… And that is… the size (or lack thereof). Now I know what you're going to say: "It's not all about the size" "it's about how you…" I'll stop you there. These Noshu Guilt Free Donuts are really small. Now full disclosure, I've got quite large hands, but as you can see in the photo below, this ain't your average sized donut. It's significantly smaller. I think it would be more suitable to call them Donutettes. Now the size on its own you can hopefully put aside, but these aren't cheap either, which I'll come back to later. OK, so I've got that out of the way, how do these Noshu Guilt Free Donuts taste? Credit where credit's due, these actually do taste quite good. The texture is slightly different to a regular donut (of course) but not in a bad way. It's a fair bit more dense but you kind of expect that with a healthier choice so I don't actually mind it. There's a few different flavours of Noshu Guilt Free Donuts. I ate the Chocolate Raspberry flavour one and cut up the Banana & Coconut flavour and Caramel Spice for the girls in the office. The general consensus was that they're quite nice, but very sweet. The icing got a special mention of being too sweet. The thing to remember with sweetness is that everyone's taste buds are different. If you were used to eating sugar-laden donuts than these would probably taste about right, but because our office is a bit more health focused than your average (as you'd expect) our sensitivity to sweetness is quite high. TLDR: The taste is pretty good.

So, what is in these Noshu Guilt Free Donuts?

These ingredients listed below are for the Chocolate & Raspberry Noshu Guilt Free Donuts, but the rest would be very similar I'd imagine.

Egg, water, dark chocolate icing (natural sweetener , sustainable palm kernel oil, virgin coconut oil, soy flour, cocoa powder, tapioca, sunflower lecithin, natural raspberry flavour), pumpkin puree, coconut, cocoa powder, soy flour, soluble fibre (polydextrose), baking powder (raising agents 575, 500), vegetable fibre, vegetable glycerine, beetroot, guar gum, xanthan gum, stevia, natural flavours.

So there's a fair bit going on in here, which you'd kind of expect given you've the product, then the icing and sprinkles all needing their own ingredients. But despite there being a lot of ingredients, there's actually nothing in here I'd give a second glance. Erythritol as you probably know is a natural sweetener that's usually paired with stevia as found in Natvia. It's a great natural sweetener which is quite good for sensitive stomachs compared to some of the other sweeteners. We even use it in our Protein Muffin Mix. It's great to see they're using sustainable palm oil to reduce the environmental impact on our hairy long-armed relatives. Polydextrose is usually added both as a sweetener and as a texturising ingredient. It's technically classified as a dietary fibre which you can read more about on my review of Peter's No Added Sugar Ice Cream. Raising agents 575 and 500 are just leavening and acidity regulators to help with the rising of the donuts. 500 is actually sodium carbonate which is similar to sodium bicarbonate aka bicarb soda, a staple in most pantries. Guar gum and xantham gum, both natural ingredients to give a smooth and thick consistency to foods and often beverages. Over all quite a good set of ingredients. Ingredients are taken from the packaging on the 16 May 2018 and may differ to what you see on yours.

Nutritionally speaking, how do these Guilt Free Donuts by Noshu compare?

Quite well actually. Given the small size, they're quite high in protein (11g) and very low in carbs! Due to the size difference between these Noshu Guilt Free Donuts and a regular donut, I'm not going to compare per serve but per 100g as I think that's a more fair comparison. As mentioned before, this review is based off the Chocolate and Raspberry flavour but the other flavours use similar ingredients and are nutritionally similar. Per 100g (2.2 Noshu donuts): ✅ Energy: 1240 kJ (295 Cal) ✅ Protein: 11.0g ✅ Fat: 21.4g ✅ Carbs (total): 7.1g ✅ – Sugars: 3.0g Information taken from packet. 16/05/18 Let's compare that to 100g (1.4 donuts) of a Strawberry Iced donut from Krispy Kreme: ⏺ Energy: 1560 kJ (372 Cal) ⏺ Protein: 3.1g ⏺ Fat: 16.4g ⏺ Carbs (total): 53.2g ⏺ – Sugars: 34.5g Information taken from Krispy Kreme website. 16/05/18 So it's fairly easy to see that these Noshu Guilt Free Donuts have around 86% less carbs, 91% less sugar and 3.5 times as much protein. That does deserve some recognition!

Did it deliver on it's promise?

Yeah… it's a donut, albeit a very small one. Guilt-Free. I'll leave that up to you to decide as your emotional response to any kind of food is up to you. No added sugars, true. Baked not fried, true. Gluten & grain-free, true. The thing I really just can't get past is the size and the price. I eluded to it before but these things are damn expensive in my opinion. This photo was taken at Banana Joe's in Marrickville, a health food store, but pricing as far as I've seen it fairly standard across the board at $4.00 - $5.00 ea. For me, I just can't justify it. If it were about 50% bigger, I think it would be a compelling offer… but at this size, I'd easily eat 2 (or 3) and it just doesn't stack up.

"I've got money, shut up and give me the donuts". Where can you buy Noshu's Guilt-Free Donuts?

If you're a high-roller or just really hankering for a snack then jump in your Rolls Royce and head into a stockist near you.

Have a product you want to see reviewed?

Let me know by commenting below! I'm always keen to see what you guys find and I love food :) All these reviews are just of products I've found myself and loved… or not loved. None have or will ever be paid promotions, that's just not my bag. Cheers, Luke