All Bars Are Not Alike

I eat a fair amount of bar-type snacks.  I have trying to limit myself to those which have 100 calories or less.  There are some that I love that have more calories but since I've been trying to eat more real food I've given those others up.  Glucerna has mini snack bars with 70 or 80 calories.  I like the chocolate peanut butter or the oatmeal raisin.  I was eating the Slim Fast chocolate mint mini snack bar.  It kind of tastes like those mint Girl Scout Cookies.  One day I bought a large box of Slim Fast peanut butter crunch bars at a warehouse store.  When I tasted one I felt that it had a strong resemblance in taste to Butterfingers candy bars.  I checked the ingredients and found those bars are loaded with sugar.  Way too much sugar for me.  I checked the ingredients of other Slim Fast bars and found they all list sugar as the first ingredient.  This means there is more sugar than anything else.  So I gave the rest of those disguised candy bars to my husband.  Even though the calories were reasonable I did not like how I felt eating all that sugar.  I'm not used to it anymore.

For years I drank mostly diet soda.  I would have the occasional non-diet soda but I preferred to drink the diet. Now, of course being post-bariatric surgery, I don't drink any carbonated beverages at all.  I remember the first time I got a jolt about how sugar can affect us in a negative way.  I was at a family picnic on a very hot, humid day.  The only beverage available was soda and none of it was diet.  I was so thirsty because of the heat that I kept drinking can after can of the soda.  It seemed that I kept wanting more.  My thirst was never quenched.  I was not a diabetic at this stage of my life but I felt the effects of the sugar causing my thirst to increase.  A diabetic who does not control their blood glucose level feels the same way.

So the advice I have here is READ LABELS BEFORE YOU BUY!  I've learned my lesson.  Since Glucerna is targeted to diabetics I feel they're ok.  Beware of disguised sugar.  High fructose corn syrup and evaporated cane juice are the same as plain old sugar.  If a product uses all three in smaller amounts none might appear as the first (and therefore more abundant) ingredient.  However, the sum of all the parts might have quite a large chunk of the product being sugar.  Other ingredients to beware of are honey, brown rice syrup and agave nectar.  These may be presented as more healthy but in essence they are sugars that are metabolized quickly and can cause rapid spikes in blood glucose.  I'm always interested in hearing about tasty low sugar treats.  Let me know what works for you.

Love to all,
Marlena of Mohegan