Posted by kathryn in Shopping Basket, Food Labelling and Snacking

I was wandering the supermarket over the weekend, looking at cereal bars. A client had asked about the Special K Bars and I wanted to take a look for myself.

What are they?

Made by Kelloggs, these snack bars are part of the Special K cereal range, they have a yoghurty drizzle and come in two flavours – original and mango & passionfruit.

They’re popular because each bar is low in fat (1.2g), carbohydrate (17.9g) and energy (419 kJ). The byline is “Delicious bars with light, crisp flakes of Special K and a yoghurt flavoured drizzle”.

Are they healthy?

Despite each bar having a low-ish energy and fat count, I’m not putting Special K bars in the healthy category. Part of the reason they’re so low in fat, etc is because they’re very light. Each bar only weighs 25g, meaning as well as “flakes of Special K” and a “yoghurty drizzle”, there’s a lot of air in there.

However, my main question is why does a small, cereal based snack bar need over 50 ingredients?

Yes, the mango and passionfruit bars really do contain that many ingredients. It’s a hard list to read, but includes:

• hydrogenated soy bean oil – a source of trans fats
• hydrogenated palm oil – a source of trans and saturated fats
• only 4.5% “mango and passionfruit flavoured pieces”, which are primarily made of apple puree concentrate, backed up with apricot and pear puree concentrate, and only 0.2% passion juice and 0.2% mango puree
• sugar and sweeteners disguised under five different names – sugar, barley malt extract, glucose, fructose and invert sugar

Healthy snacks are an important part of a good diet, but you’re better to eat something that’s a bit less processed.

05 September, 2007