Raising the bar: Which muesli bars make the cut
The long-standing muesli bar continues to be a popular pick for the lunchbox or as an after-school snack. With such a wide variety of muesli bars on supermarket shelves, including a new range of high protein bars, it can be difficult to know which ones to buy.
What should I look for?
A traditional muesli bar should include ingredients such as:
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rolled oats
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dried fruit
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nuts or seeds
However, there are a growing number of ‘snack’ bars available that don’t contain any of these typical muesli bar ingredients. So, what does this mean for the consumer and how can families confidently choose the best of the bunch?
Our analysis
We decided it was time to deep dive into the world of muesli bars and take a closer look at what’s available. In our review we examined all types of snack bars including traditional muesli bars, protein bars, oat bars, cereal bars, nut bars and fruit filled bars. We used our handy Label Reading Wallet Card to look at the nutrition information on more than 80 snack bars available in Aldi, Coles and Woolworths. The label reading card provides a breakdown of what to look for when it comes to saturated fat, sugar, and sodium per 100g. It also provides a guide for dietary fibre per serve.
What did we find?
Those with ingredients like oats, nuts and seeds at the top of the list will usually be the best to buy.
Whilst there are a handful of snack bars on offer that meet nutrient guidelines, most snack bars available in the supermarket are best to avoid. More than 80 per cent of the snack bars in our review had high sugar, which means they contained more than 15 grams of sugar per 100g. We found some snack bars had between 30-40 grams of sugar per 100g. This is similar to the amount of sugar you typically find in a biscuit!
Top picks for muesli bars with nuts
Carman’s Original Fruit Free Muesli Bars
- These contain 51% wholegrain oats, 7% nuts and 7% seeds
- Fibre - 3.1g per serve
- Sugar -11.6g per 100g
- These contain 50% wholegrain oats, 6% nuts and just over 4% seeds
- Fibre - 2.6g per serve
- Sugar - 12g per 100g
- These contain 45% peanuts, 15% almonds, 1.5% hazelnuts
- Fibre - 2.4g per serve
- Sugar - 13g sugar per 100g
Top picks for nut free muesli bars
- These contain 35% wholegrain oats
- Fibre - 2g per serve
- Sugar - 13.9g per 100g
- These contain 36% rolled oats
- Fibre - 3.6g per serve
- Sugar - 15.6g per 100g
What should I avoid?
Whether chocolate coated, chocolate flavoured or packed with chocolate chips, many of the snack bars considered worst offenders contained chocolate in one way or another. Here are three examples of snack bars that contain chocolate and have more than double the sugar per 100g when compared with our top muesli bar suggestions above!
Not your every day pick...
- These contain 25% wholegrain cereals
- Fibre – 2.2g per serve
- Sugar – 31.6g per 100g
- Saturated fat – 16.9g per 100g
- Choc chips 23%
- No listed wholegrain cereal percentage
- Fibre – 0.5g per serve
- Sugar – 36.2g per 100g
- Saturated fat – 5.9g per 100g
- Choc compound 19%
- These contain 30% white rice (no wholegrains)
- Fibre – 0.3g per serve
- Sugar – 40.5g per 100g
- Saturated fat – 4.8g per 100g
- Candy coated choc chips 14%
The wrap up
If you are looking for everyday options to include in the lunchbox, it is best to avoid snack bars containing chocolate as this consistently bumps up the sugar and saturated fat content. Some of the bars had more chocolate per 100g than you would find in choc chip biscuits.
The Carman’s Original Fruit Free Muesli Bars contained the highest amount of muesli ingredients and the lowest sugar per 100g. They make a good option for families looking for a reliable and convenient muesli bar that’s readily available on the supermarket shelves. The Hillcrest Premium Nut Bars are a great gluten free bar that is also a high fibre, low sugar option. Keep in mind bars containing more nuts will also have a higher saturated fat content.
The traditional muesli bars come out on top when compared with most others on offer.