A Question About Snack Bars

Nemo

I'm confused about how to decide what is a good, nutritionally balanced snack bar. What are the criteria to judge? Amount of added sugar? Protein? Fiber? I read recently in a health newsletter from Cleveland Clinic that most snack bars are simply candy bars. One bar that I like is Nature Valley Oat Bar which has whole oat grains as the first listed ingredient and has 11 g of sugar/2 g of fiber/ 3 g of protein per serving.

Susan_RD_101

Hi @Nemo

This depends on your goals....

If you are interested in losing/maintaining weight, I would look for one that is low in sugar/high in protein. In general, I like ones that are:
150-200 calories per bar
15-20 g of protein
~4-5 g fibre
g sugar

A personal favourite of mine is Simply Protein.

Hope this helps!

robartsd

My primary food concerns are getting protein, while limiting calories, sodium, and saturated fat. For assessing nutrition labels, I convert my targets to simplified ratios between Calories and the nutrients I'm interested that use the units present on the label.

• Protein (g) >= Calories / 20
• Sodium (mg) <= Calories
• Saturated Fat (g) <= Calories/100 (if there are any trans fats listed I include them with saturated fat)

quititz

There is no such thing as a healthy snack or snack bar, but some are "healthier" than others if you absolutely have to eat a snack bar than go for a low or zero carb snack bar with high amounts of fat and maybe some protein. No unnatural ingredients, preferably only meat and some salt.

cambrantskv

Many thanks for that complete information!