TNC Review: Nut Bars

options nutritionally. Hi, I'm Susie Burrell and I'm Leon Wood and as two of us jay Is leading dieticians who specialize in evidence based nutrition, we bring you the Nutrition Couch Product Review, a weekly chat on everything that you can find in supermarkets. Nellyanne, I know that you are very tall, very active, You've got a small baby, and I know that you do snack. I think the first time we met each other and I was visiting your home to record, you are like, oh my god, I'm

so hungry. I need to eat, And I thought, oh my god, I wish I had the metabolism of you're much younger person. But you know it is true than to find healthy snacks, there's a huge number of snack bars in supermarket. I have been a fan of nut bars a long time in my career because I find that it is a really good way for people to keep their portion of nuts control. Because of course we love our clients to have a serve of nuts a day. It's important for heart health and good evidence around that.

But of course nuts are one of those foods that are really easy to overeat. Where do you sit on nutbars? Are you? Are there something that you are using with your clients.

of added sugars. That's absolutely okay. It's not something you can get around. I think just for the convenience and the you know, it's already pre poor, it's a really tasty snack.

want to do that, that's great. But I think for a lot of us who are busy, were on the run, finding a few good brands in the supermarket is absolutely probably a lifesaver for a lot of us.

from a cost perspective. If I look at the ingredients, it's forty seven percent peanuts. The next ingredient is more dextro, which is a form of sugar, and then you've got twelve percent milk chocolate, which is sugar, vegetable oil, milk, solid's cocoa powder, and then it runs down the list. There's sort of eleven percent dried fruit in that as

well sultanas and dates glucose. So when I take a glance at the ingredient list, there is several forms of added sugar here, like I'm counting molded dexter and sugar itself. I'd count dried fruit as a sugar blue coase, sultana's dates, brown sugar, So it's not looking amazing when we look at that. It's a thirty five gram bar so per serve, it's got less than two hundred calories, which is quite

low for a nut based snack. We should also say, of course, peanuts are a legume actually not technically a nut for anyone before you DMUs seven forty five kilo jules, so five grams of protein, which is a reasonably good amount. You know, if I was giving a recommendation for a snack bar, I would say to my clients a minimum of five grams of protein, and I'd probably push to ten. Eleven point six grams are fat. It does have a relatively high amount of saturated fat at six point eight percent,

and it is a high fat product. It should also be noted that any nutbar will be high in fat because nuts are a rich source of fat. It then comes down to the type of fat, and we're aiming for more good fat than bad fat. This is relatively high and saturated fat, and that will be being bumped up by the chocolate coat. It is pretty high in sugar this one. So it's twenty five percent sugars and that's not really surprising when I've listed all the different types.

It's eight point eight grams per serve, and probably if I was giving a recommendation, i'd aim for less than five grams of sugar on a nutbar because you can easily find that it hasn't got a huge amount of dietary fiber. You know, one point nine grams for one bar is relatively low. You know, you'd really try and get up to three for a stack bar. It's quite low in sodium. Now, Leanne It's not my favorite number, but it is one that I do use, particularly with teenagers.

And the reason I use it is I find if they're a little bit anti nuts and healthier snacks, the chocolate does get them over the line. And these bars do taste really good and not surprising with that much sugar.

So it's also pretty affordable for families because of course, when it comes to snack bars, they can get really expensive, particularly with nuts, and if you're feeding a teenage boy with high calorie requirements, I'd much rather they have this than playing biscuits or potato chips or musley bars that aren't giving them any protein. So I'm kind of in

the middle with it. It's not something that I recommend to families or help people wanting to lose weight or my own clients generally, but I do use it sometimes with teenage boys because it's tasty, it's better than a lot of package snacks out there, and they'll eat it because of the chocolate. So I kind of am in the middle with it. But no, it's not something on my grocery list each ignor something that I'm giving to my own clients.

If you want us to include more of your products, you've got to put more of the nutrition information on your website because it's quite tricky to find that. Liam was like you to have this, which was great. So this is the Hillcrest Gourmet protein Bars. Now I haven't checked who makes these, but I would think it's either nice and natural or tasty, probably making these for AUDI, but I can check that. Now, this is their gourmet

protein bars with dark chocolate and cranberry. It's got ten grams of protein per serve and it is also gluten free. So straight away a couple of standout things there for people looking for high protein snacks or particularly gluten free, because there are a limited number of those products in the supermarket. Now I might need to help a little bit here because I've got the nutritionals. It's very small and my eyes are not great. So this is a forty gram bar. Do you want to read it? For

making dark? You can't see very well if you got in front of you.

It's got a two starhus rating on the front of pack And the ones that I picked up Susie with a dark chocolate and cranberry bars, so you know, obviously pretty tasty. Dark chocolate and cranberry is a great combination. So there's five bars. I don't actually have the exact cost. I think from memory they were there were three dollars something Susie still less than a dollar per bar. I think, you know, quite affordable for most families, so sort of

sitting in that middle price point. And then when you look at one bar, which is forty grams, we've got around eight hundred kilodels, so about one hundred and ninety calories, so very similar to it from an energy density perspective to the last bar that we talked about, a bigger amount of protein. We've got ten point five grams per bar,

no detectable gluten, so suitable for ours CELIAX. We've got nine point seven grams of fat, with three of that being saturated fat, so higher saturated fat than the bar

that we previously talked about. We've got fifteen grams of carbohydrates per serving, so around one serve of carb per bar, with eight point two grams of sugar, so there's still a little bit higher in terms of added sugar, two point two grams of dietary fiber honestly still susie a little bit lower than what I would really like at a snack bar. And eighty four milligrams of sodium, which

is very low. So the thing that really struck me here once I did turn over the packet when I got home, hence why I gave them to David and didn't eat them myself. There's a very very large ingredient list like this is perhaps one of the largest ingredient lists I've seen. So we've got roasted peanuts thirty percent. We've got glucose syrup which is a form of sugar. We've got high protein compound dark chocolate which is twelve percent. We've got soy protein nuggets fourteen percent. So that's how

they get the added protein into that bar. So this is why this vir is quite high in protein. It's not just the nuts. They add this soy protein nuggets in there as well. Then we've got sweetened dried cranberries, not just standard dried cranberries. They've added the sugar free, the sugar free sweetened ones, so four point five percent cranberries. Also got three percent soy protein isolate, currants, per peeters, peanut paste, maltodextrin, inulin, vegetable oil, almonds, cashew, cinnamon, and

a few sort of emulsifiers. And on the very bottom of the label Susy it does say contains sustainable palm oil. Now, I couldn't care less if it's sustainable or not. We're not big fans of palm oil on this podcast, are we Susy Regardless of it's sustainable.

active people on a budget. You know, someone who's done a workout in the morning and wants a quick recovery or afternoon at a good price point. Keep in mind that some protein bars, as we've talked about before, up to five dollars a serve. You know, here you're looking at you know, less than a dollar. So it's got a place for me. But it's not my go to, No, definitely not, but it's you know, it's still better, I feel than a played music bar with no protein in it.

But it's sort of as I said, if I was racing it out of ten, i'd give it, you know, a six out of ten as a reference point because of that really flooded ingredient list and a lot of added sugars. So yeah, they're interesting products, and I do encourage manufacturers to clean them up because they can abs still lighten those sugar loads. Definitely. They plug in as

many relatively cheap ingredients at those price points. But if there's consumer push to cut it back, certainly, I think over time we'll see more and more options than a lower in sugar as we progress through. So yeah, it's sort of a middle ground product.

it is good to include products like these. And David did say they're super tasty, so I mean it's probably something that he want me to buy. He can have them a couple of times a week. I think it's fine. But he does eat plain nuts as well, so you know, getting the nutrients in that way.

not peanuts. So I would really if you're looking for a health conscious choice, I'd be picking a product which is a variety of nuts in they're not just peanuts as the added nuts.

in general that I haven't mentioned enough. Absolutely, when you're looking for nut bars, you are less peanut more other nuts, because when it comes to those health provading benefits, they're much higher from things like your almonds, your walnuts, your hazel nuts, but are also more expensive nuts, which is why manufacturers, when they're trying to get a price point that's lower, will for peanut because it's cheaper make it, but nutritionally one hundred percent, you're better to spend on

the other mix of nuts and have a quick scan and look for sort of you know, a higher proportion of almond or peanut lowered down. That's a really, really good point. I should have made that in the beginning land, which leads us to our final nut bar we wanted to look at. Now. This is from the Carmen's range we've chosen just around in one I just went Carmen's Almond hazel nut Vanilla. There's a lot of different varieties

out there. Straight away, I'm liking it simply because there's sixty two percent nut, and that goes peanut, m and hazel nuts, so you're getting over a quarter of the nut bases from a nut other than a peanut. It does have peanuts in it, though, because as I said, to keep the price point down, they will need to mix that, but also to get the flavor of the actual bar, because of course peanuts give you that creamy taste which is important in the mouth when you're having

a nut bar. So these retail for five a pack of five for six dollars, so it does start to go higher price point. They are gluten free, which is a great bonus for many clients, and also they really mark it on low. So these have got less than four grams of sugar per serve, which is incredibly low. Less than five grams, oh sorry, less than for my eyes are so bad, less than five grams per serve, so they've really worked hard to get a formulation that

is lower. So it's just under that two hundred calories per serve, six point six grams of protein, twelve point eight grams of total fat, and just one point four saturated, so slightly higher and saturated fat at a percentage point. But nuts are hard to get down because they do have all of the fat types in there. So overall,

very positive fat ratios in this product. Nine point four grams of carb per serve, so relatively low in carbohydrate for a snack bar, and less four point six grams of sugars Perserve Dietary five is outstanding three point seven grams, so that far higher than the other more processed bars we've seen. And I take a closer look at the

ingredient list. They are getting some sugar from glucose, but there's also eight percent per peters, which are a really rich source of long chain fats, the Amiga three fat, so that's a really strong addition nutritionally, six percent honey, brown rice syrup, puff cilium cinnamon. They're getting the fiber from the cilium natural vanilla flavor. So a very clean list. It does have some added sugar because you're going from you've got to have the bar stick with something, you know.

I think people are like, it's got sugar, Well, of course it does. It's a bar. What do you think it's going to stick with. You can't put egg in there, It's not going to taste very good. So when we get back to basic food, if you've got some chopped nuts, you've got to stick it with something. So there is going to always be some added sugar in a bar.

But compared to say an apple, not that I'm comparing a processed food to an apple, but you're going to get twenty grams of natural sugars in an apple, So four point six in the grand scheme of things, as a snack food that's also offering protein and good fat,

is is no cause for concern. And you know, land these would be one of my favorite types of nut bars out there because they're pretty clean, they taste good, they've got a high proportion of a range of nuts, they're high in fiber, they're pretty high in protein, and everyone likes them.

It's like having a coffee in the afternoon. So there's certainly some options you do pay a little bit more for the quality, but these are, you know, the bars that I will opt towards for clients who are looking for a nutbar. But I'll also say to clients, look, there's nothing wrong with having a handful of nuts. And

a piece of fruit as an afternoon snack. Either. They're just options and if you are looking for a nup bar, certainly these are one of the best on the market in terms of ingredient lists and taste and profile.

to boost the fiber content up. We saw one of the ones the brand before Susie added Inland Come and added. I find celium is a lot more gentle and better tolerated on my gut and my ibs. I really can't tolerate chicory root at all, and Inland those two ones are big ones that companies add in to boost the

overall fiber content. So I really struggle and I find a lot of the protein based bars either add inulin or chickery roots if you have a sensitive gut looking for bars without sort of inlin and chickery root, I think are a really good option for people with IBS. So you know, they're mostly scattered through the majority of our package sort of snack bar products. So I really do like the Carmen's range because from an IBS or an irritable our perspective, they are pretty good for most

of my clients. So this is my one of choice. I like the dietary fibers higher. I like the sugars are higher, are lower, sorry, and I do like the mix of that nuts in there. It's not just all peanut based. But if you were just to read the ingredient list per se, you would think that it's a really high sugar product because you've got glucose, you've got honey, you've got brown rice syrup. You're like, well, that's three

different types of sugar in the one bar. But what overall, looking at at all points, six grams is actually quite low for something like a nut bar. So this is definitely my favorite one. It is a higher price point, but I am someone who I would say, probably, you know, I can definitely talk from that privileged perspective. I can you know, afford this high price point, So this is something that I definitely choose to spend my money on

a better quality product. But we understand that a lot of our families listening are on a budget, so we do hope that we've given you some different options in terms of some other more affordable bars as well. But if you do have, you know, a little bit of extra money to spend, this is probably definitely my pick

of the three. Although it's not as high a protein as one of the other ones that we talked about, I think the general macro nutriment distribution is better better overall than the other two bars that we have talked about.

one nut based snack per day. So just because they're pretty good nutritionally, it doesn't give your license to eat the whole box, so just keep that in mind too. They are pretty tasty, they are right and well. That brings us to the end of the Nutrition Couch product review for another week. If you haven't done so already, please subscribe and encourage your friends too so we can keep bringing you the Nutrition Couch Podcast every Wednesday and Sunday mornings. We'd love to hear from you on our

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