As a faithful fan of breakfast bars, I bought some this weekend on my massive grocery trip. I decided to try something new (I usually go with Nutri-Grain Muffin Bars, Banana Nut- delish), and I picked out Smart Start Healthy Heart Bars, in Strawberry Vanilla.
DO NOT GO THERE.
This morning, I innocently took a bite at my desk. On first bite, I was a bit disgusted, as I don’t like overly sweet things.
My criteria for a delicious breakfast bar:
-moist, but not sticky
-yummy
-doesn’t taste like candy
-doesn’t cause tooth decay
-goes well with yogurt
Now, that list may seem simple to satisfy. Unfortunately, after a few bites of my Heart Smart bar, I realized that it just wasn’t up to par. And so, I decided to check the label.
Iron: Check
Calcium: Check
Vitamin A: Check
Well the problem didn’t seem to lie in the nutritional facts table. So I moved on to ingredients, where I discovered THE PROBLEM.
Ingredients: Oat bran, rice, corn syrup, sugar, fructose…
Now, in a breakfast bar-which by definition must be good for you and a nice “heart healthy” way to start your day- should not have THREE of its top five ingredients be sugar variants. Big Problem.
Since when does Heart Healthy mean “Kill your Pancreas!”?