We received a slew of Spanish Stevia-infused, sugar-free and gluten free candies from old school sweets maker Gerio. Since 1939 these folks have been making the goods, and they have coffee candy called Kopiko that is wonderful.

We reviewed those over 10 years ago.

Young, we’re not.

Gerio now has healthy candy, and I’m not in love with it.

We received “Geriovit” and “Geriolin”. The “ovit” are hard herb candies. The “olin” are similar to Hi-Chews, Starburst-like, but these are chalky. All of them have that fake sweet of Stevia, which is good for diabetics and others who can’t eat sugar, but tastes like saccharine. And because I DO eat sugar, I stay away from the imitations.

Simply put, both of these candy types aren’t very good.

But for different reasons:

• The fruit chews (Geriovit) aren’t fruity, nor chewy. They break up in your mouth into candy fragments – kind of like Razzles before the Razzle turns into gum. The flavors aren’t tasty either. I didn’t want to finish them when I put them in my mouth.

• The herb sweets taste like oregano. Like, seriously, oregano. Maybe even rosemary. Like, actually, rosemary. Think about that. The flavors are SO on point, that it confused my brain. I expected a Ricola-like hard candy and instead I got something I felt would be the missing ingredient to my gramma’s marinara sauce. Still…these are truly “herbal,” so one star for going all the way.

The overall issues with Geriovit and Geriolin cam be summed up simply: the texture is off and they taste weird.

May I suggest you eat a piece of fruit instead?