Are cereal bars a healthy snack option?

It can be difficult to know what choices to make when thinking of nourishing snacks. It doesn’t help that a lot of products have great marketing and are sold as a healthier option, when really they're not as nutritious as you may think.

The goal of my blog is to give you the facts to make informed choices about your food, so let’s dive right in.

What makes a ‘healthy' snack? 

There isn’t a universal definition of what makes a healthy snack, but ideally it should have a source of protein and/or fibre. These nutrients will help keep you fuller for longer and mean you’ll be able to last until your next meal. The snack should also be low in sugar. Sugar raises our blood sugar levels and then our body works to lower it again. This rise and fall of our blood sugar levels can leave us feeling hungry quickly, which defeats the purpose of a snack!

If you can incorporate fruit and/or vegetables into your snack that’s another way to maximise the nutrition and get some of your 5 a day too. Fruit and veg contain fibre and lots of other nutrients which are essential for your body.

Snacks that are sold as healthy but aren’t: 

There are many packaged snack options that are sold as healthy or low calorie. (I’ve got another blog post on why calorie counting doesn’t tell you about the health of a food here). But I’m here to help you understand that they’re not as a great as they seem.

Foods like cereal bars, rice cakes, vegetable crisps, granola, and flavoured yoghurts often have a halo of health, but looking at the nutrition label tells you the truth.

Cereal bars: 

Cereal bars are sold as the perfect grab and go snack but they're often high in sugar. Nature Valley is a popular cereal bar brand. They pride themselves on having wholegrain oats and ‘real’ ingredients. They don’t mention the 11g of sugar in a serving of their bars. We’re meant to have no more than 30g of added sugar in a day, so this snack will take a third of your daily intake in a few bites. 

If you want to snack on a cereal bar, you can tweak it to make it more nutritious. Adding a handful of nuts alongside the bar will bring some protein and healthy fats that will help to slow down the absorption of that sugar. You could also have a look at food labels and try to find a bar that’s lower in sugar. A bar that's lower in sugar with have 5g or less per 100g. 

Or if you’re really adventurous, you can try making your own cereal bars. This way, you’ll be in control of the sugar and can add whatever mix ins you like.

Rice cakes: 

Rice cakes are always promoted as a healthy weight loss snack as they’re low in calories. This is true, with one lightly salted rice cake being around 27 calories. They're low in sugar too unless you get a flavoured one. 

However, this doesn’t make it the healthy snack it promises to be. They’re low in calories, and low in pretty much every other nutrient too. They're low in protein, fibre, and micronutrients. This’ll leave you hungry very quickly.

Adding some nutritious toppings to your rice cakes is a good way to boost the nutrition and satisfaction. Nut butters, cottage cheese, tuna mayo, and avocado are all good options to add protein and fat which will keep you full for longer.

Vegetable crisps: 

Veg crisps are promoted as healthier version of normal potato crisps. It’s often other root vegetables like sweet potato, parsnips and beetroots that make the cut. I like the idea of trying to get people to eat more veg by turning them into crisps, but unfortunately the nutrition content doesn’t stack up. 

A 25g of Walkers ready salted crisps has 7.7g of fat, with 0.6g being saturated fat. A 25g serving of Tesco’s vegetable crisps has 9.3g of fat, with 1.1g being saturated fat. So, I wouldn’t exactly call these a healthier option.

To be fair, vegetables crisps are closer to having vegetables than some other veg based crisp products. Eat Real have veggie straws with kale, tomato, and spinach. These are sold as healthy and vegan. But they’re essentially potatoes with a sprinkling of vegetable powder. The product is 0.4% tomato powder, 0.4% kale powder, and 0.2% spinach powder. Altogether, its 1% vegetable which isn’t as healthy as they want you to think.

An alternative to buying veggie crisps is to make your own in the oven or air fryer. Or you could enjoy your veg crisps and acknowledge that they're no better than potato crisps.

Granola: 

If you follow me on Instagram, (@kaegoskichen), you’ll know I love to have granola and yoghurt for breakfast or as a snack. Granola is often sold as a healthy option, but it can be high in sugar and fat. As I mentioned earlier, were meant to have no more than 30g of added sugar a day. And some granolas range from 8g to 11g of sugar per serving. They can also be up 10% of your daily fat intake.

If you’re buying granola, it’s worth looking out for a lower sugar variety to help manage your blood sugar levels. Also buying one that has nuts and seeds in it will help boost the protein content. 

If you have more time, granola is also something you can make yourself. This is a good way to be in control of what goes into it, and you can make it as healthy as you want.

Flavoured yoghurt: 

I want to say firstly that yoghurt is a great source of protein, calcium, and B vitamins. And this isn’t to discourage you from buying and eating yoghurt as it’s a very nutritious food. But not all yoghurts are equal. And some flavoured yoghurts can be high in sugar and lower in protein. 

A pot of Activia strawberry yoghurt is 14g of sugar, for example. This isn’t to say that the yoghurt won't contain calcium and other nutrients. But you can find have other yoghurts that contain all these nutrients and are lower in sugar.

Buying natural, plain, or unsweetened yoghurt is a good way to go. This way you can add some sweetener, if you want, and adjust to your tastes. Greek style or skyr yoghurts are higher in protein and can keep you satisfied for longer.

I also want to point out that of course you won't be able to have a healthy snack all of the time. Sometimes we just want a cereal bar or some crisps and that’s okay. Enjoying less nutritious snacks in moderation is fine. It’s what you do the majority of the time that has the most impact. So, making nutritious choices more often will set you in good stead.

Healthy snack ideas: 

I thought I’d also give some other snack ideas that are nutritious options:

• 
  Greek yogurt and fruit
• Nut butter and fruit
• Peanut butter and banana on wholegrain toast
• Cottage cheese and fruit
• Chia seed pudding
• Veggie sticks with hummus, or guacamole, or salsa
• Roasted spiced chickpeas
• Cheese cubes and fruit 
  
• Boiled eggs
• Plain popcorn and nuts
• Seeded crackers with cheese, hummus, or avocado

Key points:

• A healthy snack should contain protein and/or fibre and be low in sugar. This will keep you satisfied until your next meal.
• A lot of snacks and foods marketed as healthy, often aren’t. Foods like cereal bars, rice cakes, granolas, flavoured yoghurts, and veg crisps aren’t as nutritious as you may think.
• You can enjoy less nutritious snacks in moderation and make some small tweaks to boost the nutrition.

I hope you found this blog post useful.

Bye for now! 👋