Greetings, friends! And welcome to Caroline Finds It: my weekly newsletter where I reply to submissions from YOU for objects and products you need recommendations for.
This week I’m tackling one of my favorite daily indulgences: on-the-go snacks!
From Jackie in Philadelphia: “I’m looking for a bar or similarly easy lunch on the go/shove into bag in morning option that tastes good, not loaded with sugar, and not all one grainy texture. Bonus points for none to minimal dried fruit (avoider of sticky chewy food in general)"
Dear Jackie,
For many years I had a very good personal trainer named Mike who used to keep a pocket full of tiny Snickers bars. His theory was that protein bars generally have as much sugar as a candy bar and are so full of garbage that he’d rather just have a Snickers for a little boost of energy. He’s not wrong, and I think about this all the time when I’m choosing a snack that’s marketed as “healthy”. A lot has changed about the bar industry since then, and so many of the lower sugar options now are date-based, which can be SO sticky, chewy and sweet.
I’ve got tried and tested recommendations for you in each of what I consider to be the 5 categories of bar: oat-based/granola, date-based, savory, dessert-like, and mainstream (meaning you can easily find it at a regular grocery store). All of these suggestions are minimally processed and made with real-food ingredients. No artificial sweeteners allowed here!! My goal here was to pick bars with under 10g of sugar (for reference, Larabars, RX Bars and Clif Bars are all between 15-18g). Here we go:
Oat-based
Over Easy bars are the simplest, tastiest, most satisfying granola bar on the market. The texture is uniform, dense and firm enough to hold up in your bag, while still being easy to chew. 8g of protein, and 9g of sugar.
Date-based
Thunderbird bars are the only date-based bars I eat. They come in delicious, unusual flavors (carrot fig! Texas pecan!) and are soft but won’t stick to your teeth like an RX Bar. They vary in sugar — the lowest being 13g (my favorite hazelnut coffee maca), which is still the lowest sugar I’ve found in a date-based bar. Try these when you’re bored of the standard peanut butter-almond-coconut-cashew-caramel-chocolate bar flavors.
Savory
Afar bars are a new favorite of mine, which I found on a recent visit to The Goods Mart . They’re made in Brooklyn and are light, crunchy and actually savory, which is a welcome and refreshing alternative to all of the sweet options. I don’t know of any other savory bars that aren’t meat-based — in fact, these are totally vegan, and clock in at only 2g of sugar (and 10g of protein!).
Dessert-like
Mezcla bars have been popping up in all sorts of shops in the past 6 months and come in fun, gourmet flavors. The base of the bar is pea protein crispy ball, so it’s basically a fancy rice crispy, but with 10g of protein.
Mainstream
Most grocery store bars fall under “you might as well eat a Snickers” category because they are packed full of sugar or corn syrup. The best one I’ve had recently comes from Autumn Gold, which is a General Mills brand, and fits all of your criteria. At 6g of sugar, I dare you to find a better option at Costco!
In Memorium:
Kashi makes the best supermarket granola bars, hands down. I crushed a box of the Train Mix bars each week in high school and just loved the Nature Valley-esque crunch of the honey almond flax ones. As I was researching this, I noticed that their website didn’t list any of the bars available and after a few minutes of sleuthing, I found out from their Twitter account that as of two weeks ago, ALL Kashi Bars have been discontinued!!! Time to stock up! A true loss to the American supermarket shopping public :(
QUICK ANSWER
Suzie in Pittsburgh is looking for convincing candy pebbles: “ I just read your latest issue, and it reminded me that I have been on a quest for a fun candy a friend brought me from her vacation. These are so aesthetically pleasing and just plain fun. My friend played a little trick with these on her granddaughter, who thought her grandmother was actually eating rocks!😆 Anyway, I was able to find a reasonable facsimile. I would love it if you were able to find another version of these, because they are not quite as nice as the ones she brought me.”
Realistic chocolate rocks is such a candy bowl power play! I love these so much, and as I was researching, I kept coming across ChocoRocks by Kimmie Candy, which appear to often be repackaged for other brands, and for good reason! The colors are particularly lovely in this assortment, as are the variety of shapes. I think they’ll be just right for any future tooth-numbing pranks.
FAVORITE PRODUCT OF THE WEEK
Jackie, who submitted this week’s request recommended one of my favorite portable snacks to me during a shopping trip at H Mart years ago. Crispi Roll 12 Grain is tube-shaped crunchy snack that contains the following grains: brown rice, pearl barley, buckwheat, mung beans, speckled kidney bran, black soybeans, oatmeal, pea, small red beans, black glutinous rice, corn and husked lotus. What I like most about them is the texture. It feels like biting into a hard piece of foam, but then it melts into a grainy, slightly sweet, surprisingly not dry but still firm texture. Clearly, I can’t explain it to you, and neither could Jackie when she first pointed them out to me. Just do what I did and give it a try — especially in the seaweed flavor if your store has it!
Is there a product you’re looking for? Submit your request here. See you next week for fresh recommendations! xo Caroline
Yummy! Love