Is there any difference between the two?

There are many kinds of “nutrition bars” in the stores these days, but how do you know if it is healthy food or junk food in disguise? One requirement needed to uncover the truth is the skill and willingness to read and understand food labels closely.

Truthfully, and sadly, most of the nutrition bars on the market today are barely better than candy bar. (No, this does not mean you get to eat candy bars, this means you need to be very careful about eating nutrition bars.) Nutrition bars grew out of hikers’ and marathoners’ needs to have nutritious energy in a convenient package. So the birth of the food item was well intended, but things have gone horribly wrong, or perhaps we could say very well marketed for the purposes of creating sales. Today we have bars geared towards athletes, bars geared towards dieters, and even bars geared towards children.

The worst culprit is “dieting” nutrition bars. The first ingredient on the label is corn syrup! Then the second ingredient is sugar (just in case the corn syrup didn’t make it sweet enough!), and after that hydrogenated oils (trans fats). The rest of the label is finished off with artificial flavors, colorings, more hydrogenated oils, and soy by-products. These bars are marketed as meal replacement bars but replacing a meal with pure sugar and fat, and the bad ones at that, is a very ill conceived notion indeed.

Additionally, many people eat these under the false notion that they are reducing their calories and can therefore “cheat” a bit by eating more junk food. If you follow the meal replacement plans of these diet products, you are getting junk and artificial nutrients. If you eat these bars with your regular diet, then you are just adding unhealthy junk to your diet. Either way, these bars provide no tangible benefits to the consumer.

The other primary “nutrition” bars are the ones aimed at the workout crowd. These bars tend to have more nutritional rewards then the “diet” bars, but not many. You can find fiber rich whole grains and dried fruits and nuts, but these are usually covered with sugars, fats and bleached flour. These bars also tend to be very high in calories, some reaching even 400 calories which is as much as a healthy meal should contain! Because of the high number of calories and bad fats and carbs, these “healthy” power or energy bars can lead to weight gain.

Two other bars that deserve some review are granola bars and the newer soy bars. Most granola bars are little more than a cookie with a sprinkling of whole grains. Many have more sugar than a bowl of kid cereal and they tend to be sweetened with corn syrup; this gives them a chewy texture. They also are high in calories but offer few benefits and should be avoided.

One of the biggest myths about nutrition introduced in the last few years is the myth of soy beans. A lot of work by marketers has gone into convincing us that this is a new “wonder food”. They tell use that Asian cultures have been eating soy beans for hundreds of years and give us the impression that it is such a simple food, how can it do us any harm? First off, Asians have been eating soy beans for years, but not heavily and not in the raw form. Asian cultures have fermented soy to create soy sauces or miso which chemically alters the components found in the soy bean. The big danger that the food industry has largely ignored is the fact that the isoflavones in soy mimic human thyroid hormones. Thyroid hormones regulate your metabolism and when your thyroid gland thinks that the isoflavones are hormones, it reduces the amount of hormone it produces. And take a guess at what happens, your metabolism slows down! Because of this danger soy based foods are discouraged in Europe and the EU has even outlawed any soy products in baby formulas.

The conclusion to draw from all of this is that nutrition bars are basically junk food with a false name. They offer you few nutritional benefits but lots of fat, sugar and calories. A much better option would be to have a bowl of oatmeal (using regular rolled oats, not sugar heavy instant oatmeal) or to mix together some nuts, dried fruit and a high fiber cereal to make your own trail mix.