Snack bars can be great to have on hand when you get a little hungry as they can help stabilise your blood sugar until your next mealtime. It also makes it easier to resist unhealthy foods like chocolate and crisps.
We often get questions from WLA ladies looking for advice on which snack bars to pick and what to avoid.
In our “Top Tips For Healthy Snacking” post, we touched on selecting snack bars, so now we want to delve into this a bit more!
Here are our top tips for selecting a healthier snack bar:
📜 Less Ingredients
The ingredients list on the back of the packaging appears in order of quantity. So, if sugar, fat and salt are listed high up in the ingredients, this means that the product contains a lot of these. When it comes to a good quality snack bar, less is more, look for options with only a handful of ingredients and go for a bar that is based on fruit, oats and seeds as these will keep you fuller for longer.
🍬 Low In Sugar
Go for a bar with less than 5g of sugar per 100g, but check the ingredients as this could be due to dried fruit (i.e natural sugar), such as dates and raisins, rather than added sugars. Some bars will also have the amount of added sugar on the Nutrition Facts label, go for a bar with the least amount of these and avoid bars coated in chocolate or yoghurt as these will be higher in added sugars.
🌾 High In Fibre
Bars containing complex carbohydrates like oats, nuts, seeds and fruit will naturally be higher in fibre than bars with rice puffs or refined cereals. Look for bars with 2-3g of fibre per bar, which should keep you full until your next meal.
🚦 Look At The Traffic Light System
If available, look at the traffic light system on the front of the packaging for the sugar, fat, saturated fat, and salt content.
🟢 More green on the label is the healthier the choice and is fine as an everyday.
🟠 Amber means neither high nor low, foods with all or mostly amber on the label can be consumed most of the time.
🔴 Any red on the label means the food is high in sugar, fat or salt, and these should be consumed in moderation.
Let us know in the comments what your favourite snacks bar is.
