Battle of the bars

Is your nutrition bar all health or all hype?

By Brandy Wind with Emily Oppenheimer MS

What do you eat when you’re too busy to eat? The hectic pace of college and university life has most of us resorting to snacks pretty regularly. While candy bars are convenient and satisfy our cravings for sweets, health bars feel like a nutritional step up.

But are health bars really that much more nutritionally redeeming than candy bars? What’s the best way to get a quick protein or carb hit?

We took our five favourite cravings: peanut, caramel, coconut, fruit, and chocolate. Then we compared each of them in three forms: a candy bar, a health bar, and a homemade alternative (or in one case, a piece of fruit). See our side-by-side analysis and our expert’s recommendation. (Prices vary by location and store.)

Expert Abby Langer, Registered Dietitian at St. Joseph’s Health Centre, Toronto, Ontario

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Peanut

Snickers®
$1.25-$2.50
calories: 250
sugar: 27g
protein: 4g, 8% of RDA

Luna Bar® peanut honey pretzel
$1.25–$1.60
calories: 190
sugar: 11g
protein: 9g, 18% of RDA

No-bake peanut butter protein bar
$0.50–$0.80 per serving
calories: 229
sugar: 17.5g
protein: 12.5g, 25% of RDA
Grab the recipe.

Which would you choose? See if the expert agrees.

Expert’s choice
Luna Bar® peanut honey pretzel
“The Luna Bar® wins hands down. Luna Bars® are portable nutrition bars intended for snacking. They contain quite a bit of protein, which will satisfy hunger. The calorie count comes in below the 200 mark we prefer for snacks. It has less sugar than its competitors in this group, plus more favourable numbers for fibre, calcium, and iron. These make it the best choice.

“The homemade peanut butter bars are really high in sugar. The recipe could easily be improved by cutting down the honey. They’d win in this category if the sugar was lower.” —AL

Coconut

Bounty®
$1.50–$2.50
calories: 268
sugar: 15g
protein: 3g, 6% of RDA

Homemade almond coconut bars
$0.60–$1.00 per serving
calories: 254
sugar: 10g
protein: 4.4g, 9% of RDA
Get the recipe.

Clif Bar® coconut chocolate chip
$1.30–$2.00
calories: 240
sugar: 22g
protein: 10g, 20% of RDA

See if the expert agrees! Which coconut snack
is the healthiest?

Expert’s Choice
Homemade almond coconut bars
“The coconut bars win in this section because they are more of a snack than an energy bar, and they’re cheaper. They also have far less sugar than the candy bar.

 “[The Clif Bar®] is meant to be eaten before or during exercise, which is why the carbohydrates are so high in this particular choice. It’s not a good choice for a snack.

“You want to consider why you’re consuming [the bars]. Are you choosing a bar to increase energy and endurance during sports? The Clif Bars® would work best because they are specially formulated to help with energy during exercise.”—AL

Fruit

Starburst®
$1.25–$2.00
calories: 130
sugar: 22g
fibre: 0g, 0% of RDA

Florida’s Natural® Au’Some Nuggets Fruit Grove
$5.00 pack of 10
calories: 50
sugar: 9g
fibre: 0g, 0% of RDA

An actual apple
$1.00–$2.00
calories: 95
sugar: 19g
fibre: 4.4g, 17.5% of RDA

How do you like them apples? See if the expert agrees

Expert’s Choice
An Apple
“The fruit is always going to win in [any] category because of its fibre, natural sugars for energy, and lack of artificial ingredients.” —AL

Caramel

Twix®
$1.50–$2.00
calories: 250
sugar: 24g
fibre: 1g, 4% of RDA

Homemade 5-ingredient granola bar
$0.90–$1.50 per serving
calories: 240
sugar: 26g
fibre: 4.2g, 17% of RDA
Grab the recipe.

PowerBar® Triple Threat™ chocolate caramel fusion
$2.25–$3.00
calories: 230
sugar: 15g
fibre: 3g, 12% of RDA

Care about caramel? See if the expert agrees

Expert’s choice
PowerBar® Triple Threat™ chocolate caramel fusion
“The PowerBar® is favourable because of its heavy protein load and lower sugar than the other two options. PowerBars® aren’t intended for someone who isn’t doing intense exercise.

“Homemade options tend to be cost-effective, but make sure you don’t get swayed by the ‘health halo’ effect of the homemade concept. Homemade items can be just as unhealthy as chocolate bars if they contain tons of sugar and fat.

“I like the granola bar recipe, but it’s high in sugar. I’d decrease the dates by about a quarter and increase the nut butter by an equal amount, which will provide more protein and less sugar.” —AL

Chocolate

Hershey’s®
$2.50–$3.00
calories: 210
saturated fat: 8g, 40% of RDA
protein: 3g, 6% of RDA

Balance Bar® chocolate craze
$2.50–$3.00
calories: 200
saturated fat: 4g, 20% of RDA
protein: 14g, 28% of RDA

Homemade chocolate GORP
$0.30–$0.50 per serving
calories: 102
saturated fat: 1g, 5% of RDA
protein: 3g, 6% of RDA
P.S.: GORP = good old fashion raisins & peanuts
Check out the recipe.

What’s your chocolate fix? See if the expert agrees

Expert’s choice
Chocolate GORP
“The GORP wins because it’s the one with the least processed ingredients and sugar. It’s low in protein though.” —AL

An expert debunks  “health bar” myths

Expert Ivy Lam, Registered Dietitian, University of Waterloo, Ontario

Is honey a healthier sweetener than sugar?
 
“While honey is seen as a more natural source, both honey and sugar provide calories with few additional nutrients. Sugar provides 16 calories per teaspoon, while honey has 22 calories per teaspoon.

“When students hear that a food is sweetened with honey, they may think that it’s healthier. That’s unfortunately not true.”

Bottom line:  Use honey and sugar sparingly. While there are no specific recommendations for how much sugar to consume each day, Canada’s Food Guide recommends limiting foods that are high in the sweet stuff.  The Institute of Medicine in the US suggests that the intake of added sugar be limited to less than 25 percent of total calories consumed.

How meaningful are the added vitamins and minerals? 

“Health bars sometimes advertise a plethora of vitamins and minerals, but if you are consuming a balanced diet, you’re likely getting these already. Eating a varied and balanced diet that follows Canada’s Food Guide helps us meet our vitamin and mineral needs.”

The findings
What’s so great about homemade snacks compared to health or candy bars?

Cost: Lowest
Saturated fat: Lowest
Sugar: Lower depending on recipe
Fibre: High
Protein: High
Whole ingredients: Highest

How health bars rate, compared to candy bars

Cost: Similar
Calories: Similar
Saturated fat: Lower
Sugar: Lower
Whole ingredients: Similar (low)

Extra tid bits
How we calculated some nutritional estimates

Nutritional estimates are based on one serving.
They were calculated using Health Canada’s Canadian Nutrient File (CNF), 2010.

Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet by the Government of Canada’s nutrition facts table.