5 “Healthy” Snacks That Aren’t So Healthy
Don’t be so quick to feel virtuous when you reach for dried fruit instead of chocolate, or veggie chips instead of Pringles.
Many snacks that are marketed as being great for your waistline actually aren’t that much better—and, in some cases, are worse—than some popular notoriously indulgent treats. A few offenders:
By Tina Peng, Newsweek
1. Dried Veggies
Snapea Crisps are made from sun-dried peas and contain all of the peas’ natural nutrients, according to manufacturer Snack Salad. But don’t think that means they’re light on the calories: a one-ounce serving, or about 22 crisps, has 150 calories and 8 grams of fat, according to snacksalad.com. Calorie- and fatwise, that’s just as bad as the unhealthiest bags of Doritos on the market (that spread includes the Hot Wings and Blue Cheese flavor). So think twice before dipping them in your favorite ranch dressing.
2. Veggie Chips
Terra Chips, those colorful, gourmet slices of sweet potato, parsnip and yucca, contain 150 calories and 9 grams of fat in each one-ounce, 14-chip serving, according to Terrachips.com. And Utz’s Natural Exotic Medley Vegetable Chips have 160 calories and 10 ounces of fat per ounce, according to the company’s Web site.
Check out great Root Vegetable Chips with a Soup
3. Granola Bars
Though granola bars do contain healthy grains, they’re often doused in enough sugar and syrup to obviate at least some of the health value. Nature Valley’s vanilla nut granola bars, for example, contain 190 calories and 7 grams of fat in each two-bar serving. Each serving also contains 11 grams of sugar, or as much as a 3/4-cup bowl of Lucky Charms, according to General Mills.
You may be inspired by homemade granola bar recipe and decided to create granola bars by yourself.
4. Dried Fruit
That dried apricot may taste as healthy as a fresh one, but it pales in comparison to the real thing. It takes more dried fruit to feel full (the natural water in fruit is filling) and that means more calories. On top of that, many dried fruits are covered in added sugar. One fistful of raisins contains as many calories as a whole pound of fresh grapes, according to the Web site of nutritionist and diet consultant Anne Collins, annecollins.com; five dried pear halves hold 229 calories, according to dietbites.com.
You can also learn how to make dried fruit or know about good one on the market.
5. Bran Muffins
They might beat out chocolate chip muffins in the health race, but bran muffins are full of refined flour and sugar. One medium muffin contains 305 calories, 8.4 grams of fat and 9.3 grams of sugar, according to caloriecount.about.com. An old-fashioned cake doughnut from Dunkin’ Donuts has 280 calories, 18 grams of fat and 6 grams of sugar, according to dunkindonuts.com.
Though you can make some moist bran muffins as Wendy or try to cook fully vegan pumpkin bran muffins.
Eat well!
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By bulk herbs on Feb 5, 2009 | Reply
Thanks for these tips. I have certainly made the mistake in regards to the dried fruit and granola bars. I will have to be even more judicious in my choice of “healthy snacks”. - Nate
By Tom Parker - Free Fitness Tips on Feb 5, 2009 | Reply
I knew that dried fruit wasn’t as good as fresh fruit but I think in moderation it still constitutes a healthy snack.
By Thomas on Feb 6, 2009 | Reply
The snack suitable for you may not be for others i think this is the major problem with these diet foods and we should use the foods that good for us.
By mercola- health articles on Feb 10, 2009 | Reply
nice tips and i agree with you. drying fruits and vegetables will lose the nutrients we can get.
By Claris on Feb 16, 2009 | Reply
Healthy snacks makes the person healthy. To maintain our health we should maintain our diet. So to maintain our health fitness is not only the thing we should maintain our diet too.
By Sue Baker on Mar 6, 2009 | Reply
Good advice. I’ve learnt to check the food labels on ‘healthy’ foods as they tend to contain a lot more sugar than you’d think.
By Natural Supplement Health on Apr 8, 2009 | Reply
One little piece of advice I’ve seen a couple of times now that seems to make a lot of sense to me is this.
The further away the food is from how it was originally grown the worse for you it becomes (since it looses nutrient, vitamins, enzymes etc.).
This means that fresh fruit, vegetables etc. for example are best. Things like juice, not as good as it went through at least one level of processing and so on. Things like peanut butter etc are worst, who knows how many processes the original nuts went through to end up in peanut butter form.
By Maija Haavisto on May 4, 2009 | Reply
I don’t think the amount of calories is a good scale for measuring the healthiness of a snack. Sure the calories matter, but the nutrition content is more important. At least dried fruit are high in nutrients and except for bananas there’s rarely added sugar. Just better add some nuts to make it more satiating and to less likely to spike your blood sugar.