Healthy Muesli Bar? Nutrition of 240+ Granola, Nut, Protein & Snack Bars

Muesli bars, granola bars, nut bars, snack bars - call them what you will. These portable snacks come in handy when you're pushed for time and need something to sustain you until your next meal. Likewise, they can also be a great option as a pre-workout snack to fuel yourself up before hitting the gym. It can be difficult to know what the best options are when it comes to healthy choices. To help you, here's a nutrition comparison to help you pick the best healthy muesli bar.

It's quite common for regular gym-goers and active people to have a stash of snack bars somewhere around their home or office. Perhaps a box in the pantry, maybe one or two in your glove box in the car or in your gym bag. Possibly also that bottom drawer of your desk at work.

I'll often grab one at the airport while waiting for my flight up to site. I find it helps fill in the gap between having an early lunch and when I'll get dinner at my destination that evening.

They can make a great snack when you need to stave off hunger or just need a bit of pre-workout fuel.

Some of the more nutritious muesli bars can help keep you going, while others are little more than a sweet treat.

How do you know which brands and products are best though?

That's where my muesli bar nutrition comparison guide comes in.

Types of muesli and granola bars available in supermarkets and convenience stores

Some snack bars available are genuine 'muesli' bars. That is to say, they comprise mainly oats or muesli.

On the other hand, many bars have yoghurt-based or chocolate coatings. Furthermore, some include nuts, some fruit, some both, some neither.

There are nut bars, fruit & nut bars, nut butter bars. Additionally, some bars available are based on puffed rice while others offer a more cake-like texture.

In general, if you're looking for a healthy muesli bar to help keep you going, here are a couple of tips:

Aim for a bar with more than half its ingredients comprising of a mixture of whole grains, nuts, seeds and/or fruit.

These ingredients will help you obtain good fats as well as incorporate often-needed fibre. What's more, the addition of dried can fruit can bring a welcome boost of sweetness.

On the other hand, if you're looking for more of a sweet train, perhaps look at a lower calorie muesli bar that still meets other healthy criteria.

Comparing how muesli bars, granola bars, nut bars and protein bars are marketed

Firstly, let's set one thing straight. Just because the label says it's a muesli bar, doesn't automatically make it healthy. After all, some bars on the market aren't that much different from a regular biscuit or cookie.

For this reason, some bars out there are best viewed as occasional treats. If your favourite bar has high saturated fat content (above 4-6g per bar) then it might be worthwhile switching. Likewise, bars with high sugar content might not benefit you as much as those with lower sugar levels.

Like with most things, it pays to check the nutrition information panel. However, this can often lead to more confusion.

Looking at serving sizes on snack bars

For the most part, serving sizes on supermarket snack bars reflect the content of the package. That is, for a bar with a net weight of 40g, the serving size listed on the label would be 40g.

Simple and straightforward, right?

Well, not always.

Let's take a look at Well Naturally's No Sugar Added range of snack bars.

These are definitely on the 'occasional treat' side of the scale, marketed as a healthy chocolate bar option. Now they come in standard 45g bars - about normal when compared to similar types of bars and confectionery.

However, looking at the nutrition label, you'll see that according to the manufacturer, the package contains 3 servings. The suggested serving size is just 15g.

You see, manufacturers can pretty much decide on any serving size that they like. Obviously, the smaller the serving size, the lower the calorie, kilojoule and fat content they can declare.

When marketing your product to the weight-conscious, this can be a very useful tactic.

For the most part, brands choose to list their serving size as 1 full bar. However, as always, it pays to check the label.

Muesli bars and carbs | Checking the carbohydrate content in supermarket snack bars

When it comes to snack bars and carbohydrates there are two schools of thought. Either:

Personally, I go the higher carb route, since I find muesli bars function best as pre-workout snacks.

How carbohydrates affect marketing in muesli bars and snack bars

With keto, paleo and a whole manner of other diet trends exploding, brands market their products in creative ways.

Over the last decade, there has certainly been a push on the 'carbs are bad' mentality. And brands have honed in on this. As a result, many choose to shout their 'low-carb' choices from the rooftops.

Are they really low carb though?

Once again, it comes down to labelling. Now I'm not suggesting any brands are being unscrupulous, I'm just pointing things out as I believe it best everyone is aware.

Let's look at Noshu's Coconut Bliss Indulgence Bars

What's the largest writing on the box? Yip, LOW CARB.

Let's look at the nutrition label: (taken from Noshu's website)

Notice anything?

Carbohydrates listed as 3.7g. However, the total fibre is 8.2g.

Now, you may or may not know that dietary fibre is indeed a form of carbohydrate. So how can there be more fibre than carbohydrates?

Simple answer, there can't. Except that last sentence explains something important.

They're stating carbohydrate quantity shown is essentially the total carbohydrates with fibre and sugar alcohols taken off.

Now again, let's be clear, this is allowed and perfectly legal as per current labelling regulations.

Is it fair? I'll let you decide.

There's a whole lot of confusion regarding dietary fibre and sugar alcohols and where they should or shouldn't be labelled as carbohydrates. I'll leave that discussion for another time.

Either way, a bar with the same nutritional profile might be labelled by another brand as containing 18.4g carbohydrate.

However, here it's being marketed as a 'low carb' option. As per labelling laws, it is.

High Carbohydrate Supermarket Muesli Bar Options

As mentioned earlier, personally I prefer the bars with higher carbs since they fit in with my training and general sports diet.

Those in my survey with the highest carb content are:

However, we should note that these bars are among the largest available, coming in at 100g serving sizes each.

Sugars in muesli bars

Muesli, granola and Fruit & nut bars with dried fruit will add natural sugars. Additionally, you'll also benefit from added fibre and micronutrients. On the contrary, added sugars just add sweetness and calories, without much in the way of nutrition.

Having a sweet tooth is okay, the trick is not to overdo it.

In general, look for snack bars with less than 10g sugar per bar.

Protein content of Supermarket Snack Bars

Some brands prefer to adopt a more 'protein-forward' approach to their marketing.

What's the difference between a muesli bar vs a granola bar vs a protein bar?

In a word, marketing

There are quite a lot of grey areas when it comes to defining exactly what a muesli bar should be. Likewise, you might think of protein bars as those intensely dense, chewy items found in supplement stores.

Either way, some supermarket snack bar options like to declare the word 'protein' quite prominently on their packaging.

I'll do a nutrition survey on the more traditional supplement-type protein bars soon.

*DISCLAIMER: 21 out of the 243 bars surveyed had no value for dietary fibre listed. These 21 bars were excluded from this particular ranking.

A note about fibre in pre-workout snacks

A word of caution when it comes to choosing high-fibre muesli bars. If you're using granola bars predominantly as pre-workout options then you may prefer to look at a lower fibre option. In particular, if you snack on bars close to, or immediately before, your training session.

High fibre foods immediately prior to intense workouts can lead to digestive discomfort and ultimately inhibit performance.

In this case, a better strategy would be to adopt low-fibre snack options before your session and refuel with higher fibre foods during the rest of the day.

Sodium Content in Store-Bought Muesli Snack Bars

You'll more than likely know that too much sodium is bad for our health.

Sodium (or salt) comes in one form or another in most processed foods. And that includes our beloved snack bars.

Bear in mind, not all sodium in a bar necessarily comes from added salt. Some ingredients have natural variations in the amount of sodium they contain.

Overall, What is the Best Muesli Bar? Using the Health Star Rating to decide

By this point, you might be confused. There's so much to take into account. You want healthy, but you want energy, but the fat needs to be good fat.

If only there was a way to compare the overall nutrition and rank muesli bars based on how healthy they are.

Perhaps there is. Meet the Health Star Rating System.

What is the Health Star Rating System?

I've explained a bit about the health star system in my other blog post: Healthy Eating on a Budget: Guide to Saving Money at the Supermarket

In essence, the Health Star Rating System in Australia is a government initiative to help consumers compare foods.

There are a few key points to it:

Health Star Ratings of Muesli, Granola, Nut and Snack Bars - the healthy options

As mentioned, the Health Star Rating System is completely voluntary. Manufacturers can choose to display the ratings on their products or not.

So to give you a fair comparison, I've got the Health Star Rating algorithm to calculate the rankings for all 243 products* surveyed.

You can use this to decide if that muesli bar you're about to buy is healthy, or not.

The following 13 muesli bars obtained a very respectable 4.5 stars, so you can definitely consider them healthy too.

Thoughts, Comments, Ideas and Reactions

Well, what did you think?

Were you surprised at the winner, or were you shocked that you're favourite didn't make the list?

Perhaps you have an idea for a future nutrition comparison you'd like to see?

In any case, drop me a comment below to let me know your thoughts.

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