Are Cascadian Farm Granola Bars Healthy? Cinnamon Apple Chewy Bar Nutrition

Cascadian Farm Cinnamon Apple nutrition facts: is it healthy?

Here is one 34 g bar, from the manufacturer's label as listed in USDA FoodData Central:

The good part is the sugar. The bar has 14.4 g of sugar per 100 g, and the label lists 0 g of added sugars. That is about half the sugar of a Nature Valley Crunchy Oats 'n Honey bar, which has 28.6 g per 100 g, all of it added. Saturated fat is low at 0.5 g per bar, and 40 mg of sodium is 2% of the 2,300 mg Daily Value, which the FDA counts as low.

The weaker part is what the bar gives you besides carbohydrate. It is a small bar, so 3 g of protein and 2 g of fiber is not much for a snack. Per 100 g the fiber looks better, 6.9 g, but you eat 34 g, not 100 g. On our calculation the bar gets Nutri-Score C, which gives it 64 out of 100 for nutrition.

It is also calorie-dense, at 4.2 calories per gram, and 57% of its calories come from starch and sugar. It does not meet any of the fat, sugar and salt markers that researchers use to define hyper-palatable food (Fazzino et al., 2019): 29% of its calories come from fat and 14% from sugar, and it has too little salt for the carbohydrate and salt marker. The overeating part of the Truvi score is 22 out of 100, mainly because of the calorie density and the low protein.

Cascadian Farm Cinnamon Apple ingredients

There are 12 ingredients, all organic except the salt, in this order:

• Whole grain rolled oats. the main ingredient.
• Sprouted whole wheat flour and brown rice flour. two more grains that hold the bar together. The wheat means the bar is not gluten free.
• Sunflower oil. the fat in the bar.
• Glycerin. keeps the bar soft and chewy.
• Dried dates and apples. the only sweet ingredients, and where the 5 g of sugar comes from.
• Gum arabic. a thickener made from acacia sap.
• Natural flavor. added flavoring.
• Salt and cinnamon. for taste.
• Sunflower lecithin. an emulsifier, the last ingredient.

The label lists wheat. Check the box for any extra allergen notes before you buy.

Are Cascadian Farm granola bars ultra-processed?

This one is, even though it is organic and has no added sugar. NOVA, the food-processing scale used in nutrition research, sorts foods by how they are made, not by whether they are organic. A bar of oats, flour, oil, fruit and salt would be a processed food, group 3.

Group 4, ultra-processed, is for foods that also contain additives mostly made for industry. The NOVA authors name flavors, emulsifiers and thickeners among these cosmetic additives (Monteiro et al., 2019). This label has all three: natural flavor, sunflower lecithin and gum arabic. That moves the bar to NOVA 4, and the processing part of the Truvi score is 30 out of 100 for that reason.

So the bar is a better choice than a high-sugar granola bar, but if you want to avoid ultra-processed food, look at the bars below that are NOVA 3.

Why it scores 41 out of 100

The Truvi score (our method) is an opinion from the label. It combines three parts: processing (30 out of 100, NOVA 4 with additives), nutrition (64, Nutri-Score C) and how easy the food is to overeat (22, calorie-dense with little protein). Low sugar helps the nutrition part, but it cannot make up for the other two.

Granola bars that score higher

These bars score higher on the same scale. The two Over Easy bars and Autumn's Gold have no additives on the label and are processed (NOVA 3), not ultra-processed, but they do have honey or maple syrup. The Kashi bar is ultra-processed too, with a little more sugar, but it has more protein and fiber per bar.

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  Over Easy Overeasy Banana Nut Breakfast Bar

  Oats, almonds, honey, almond butter, tapioca fiber, dried bananas and egg whites. A bigger 52 g bar: 230 calories, 8 g protein, 7 g fiber and 10 g sugar.

  NOVA 3 · Photo: kiliweb, CC BY-SA 3.0

  68Good

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  Over Easy Banana Nut Breakfast Bars

  A second listing of the Over Easy Banana Nut bar. Per 52 g bar: 230 calories, 9 g protein, 7 g fiber and 9 g sugar.

  NOVA 3 · Photo: kiliweb, CC BY-SA 3.0

  63Good

• 

  Kashi Chewy Bars Chewy Peanut Butter Gran 7.4oz

  A chewy peanut butter bar of about the same size. Per 35 g bar: 139 calories, 4 g protein, 4 g fiber and 6 g sugar, from brown rice syrup and cane sugar. Also NOVA 4.

  NOVA 4 · Photo: cynval, CC BY-SA 3.0

  51Good

• 

  Autumn's Gold Cinnamon Almond Grain Free Granola Bars

  Grain free, made from almonds, pecans, coconut and pumpkin seeds, sweetened with maple syrup and honey. Per 35 g bar: 210 calories, 5 g protein, 3 g fiber and 6 g sugar, with 4.5 g saturated fat from coconut.

  NOVA 3 · Photo: kiliweb, CC BY-SA 3.0

  52Good

Full ingredient list and nutrition

Organic Whole Grain Rolled Oats, Organic Sprouted Whole Wheat Flour, Organic Brown Rice Flour, Organic Sunflower Oil, Organic Glycerin, Organic Dried Dates, Organic Apples, Organic Gum Arabic, Organic Natural Flavor, Salt, Organic Cinnamon, Organic Sunflower Lecithin.

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