The thought of having to get up for class in the morning is hard enough. But, the thought of having to make yourself breakfast in addition to putting together a cute outfit, applying makeup, and making your hair look presentable, is just something few girls are willing to take on at such an early hour. Unfortunately, breakfast these days means reaching into a cardboard box and pulling out a packaged granola bar. Sure the packaging makes these convenience foods seem like the perfect meal for somebody as busy as you: they are ‘all natural’, full of fiber and protein and made with whole grains.
However, if you can look beyond these marketing tactics and focus on the real nutrition facts, you will soon discover that supermarket shelves are stocked with imposters. Some granola bars contain just as much sugar as a candy bar, and when considering the amount of artificial flavoring and fat within this small serving size, these granola bars become a poor selection for anytime of the day. As a general guide, key ingredients to look out for when buying granola bars include fat, sugar, artificial flavors and colors, as well as any words that look and sound foreign, because chances are these are not natural ingredients.
According to choicemyplate.gov, there are over 20 different names that represent added sugar on food labels, making this ingredient easily disguisable. Even bars with higher quality ingredients have their flaws. Whether a bar is sweetened with sugar or fruit, it is still a form of sugar. A LaraBar, for example, contains only two ingredients: cashews and dates. However, this single bar contains a whopping 18 grams of sugar. While there are no artificial ingredients, any source of whole grain or fiber that makes for a well-balanced meal is nonexistent.
In order to help you navigate through the confusing market of granola bars, consider using Fooducate. Fooducate is an online and smartphone nutrition app that allows users to scan the barcode of a packaged food, and immediately see a grade for the product’s nutritional (or lack thereof) content. The app groups foods in a product category and ranks them on a scale from A to D, explaining the product’s nutrients, ingredients, processing and fortification. This app is a great tool to use as a guide when grocery shopping, especially when trying to select the healthiest brand out of the overwhelming number of processed foods on the market. In Fooducate’s snack bar category, products range from scoring a B- to D and have between 25 to 554 calories. Below are the highlights of some of the website’s most popular bars.
Fiber One Chewy Bars, Oats & Chocolate From their packaging, these granola bars have the making of a
well-rounded breakfast on-the-go. However, they did not receive a C- for no particular reason. There are 28 ingredients listed for this one bar, and besides sugar being listed, it is also listed under other names including high maltose corn syrup, malodrexin, honey and fructose. If you cannot understand the ingredients listed on a food label, or if the label looks more like a column from the Sunday paper, than this is a product that you should avoid consuming. Another highlight to this bar is its claim of having 9 grams of fiber, or “35 percent of the daily value of fiber.” Sure, this sounds great, but in reality, having a high concentrate of fiber in a processed form is not so healthy. Your body cannot absorb high levels of fiber consumed in one sitting, and this in turn causes diarrhea. Also, overconsumption of fiber without enough drinking enough water can cause cramping and constipation. If you feel that you need to include more fiber in your diet, do so by eating fruits and vegetables spread throughout the course of the day.
Nature Valley Crunchy Granola Bars, Oats ‘N Honey These granola bars contain two bars per package,
that equal one serving size. One serving has 190 calories and 12 grams of sugar, adding to its C+ rating. Another misleading factor about this brand is its packaging. The box has blown-up pictures of its ‘natural’ ingredients, featuring outdoorsy nature images to advertise its ‘Preserve the Parks’ campaign. Marketers use these tactics to convey to the consumer that the product inside is just as natural and wholesome as the box depicts. Unfortunately, this is not the case.
Special K Cereal Bar, Strawberry Special K targets its advertising towards women, who want to lose weight and maintain a healthy figure through its “Special K Challenge.” The brand offers a variety of bar options including cereal bars, granola bars, meal bars, pastry crisps and snack bars. This particular cereal bars only has 90 calories per serving, but it received a D in part because it contains controversial ingredients including trans-fats, and TBHQ and BHT, which are both additives to keep the oil within the bars from becoming rancid. As of January 1, 2006 the FDA required that all packaged foods include trans fats on the Nutrition Facts label. The catch to this is that if the amount of trans fats per serving is less than 0.5 grams, the label can either state that there are zero trans fats per serving or provide a footnote claiming this product to be “Not a significant source of trans fats.” If the ingredient list contains “shortening” or “partially hydrogenated vegetable oil” these are key indicators of trans fats. Another deceptive aspect of these bars is its packaging. For a package that uses images of fresh strawberries, the amount of real fruit in these bars is trivial. In fact, those ‘strawberries’ that these bars contain are simply artificially flavored dried cranberries.
Kashi Pumpkin Spice Flax Crunchy Granola Bars Kashi’s crunch granola bars are like Nature Valley in
that two bars are counted as one serving size. There are a variety of flavors to choose from, including the oh-so-tempting pumpkin spice for the fall. However, unlike many of the other bars, Kashi received a B-. Yes, there are eight grams of sugar per serving, but the first ingredient listed is whole grain oats, and these bars also include pumpkin seeds and flaxseed, which provide 300mg of omega-3s. However, even with these benefits, one serving contains 10 grams of sugar and with Kashi being an organic brand made with higher quality ingredients, these bars are going to be more expensive.
Granola bars are found in the snack aisle for a reason; they are not a meal replacement. Eating a granola bar every once in a while is perfectly fine, however it should not be your first choice for breakfast. Granola bars are a great snack to take on a hike or to throw in your purse to have for an emergency. If time is an issue for you, there are other healthy options for quick, easy breakfast options. Try eating a cup of Greek yogurt, fresh fruit, or spread natural peanut butter on a piece of whole wheat toast; the options are endless, it just takes a bit of creativity. Just remember the next time that you find yourself buying a box of granola bars, look beyond the packaging and focus solely on the ingredients.