My favourite nut bars to keep in your handbag

/ Rachel Eagleton, clinical nutritionist/

Are you a snacker?  Do you like something sweet with your morning coffee?  I am, especially as I am up early with the kids and I like to do my exercise early too, so by morning tea breakfast is a distant memory.  Nuts can help manage cholesterol, diabetes and weight, with the suggested "healthy handful" being a 30g serve per day.  Sometimes it's easy to overeat nuts so a nut bar can be a handy shelf stable option that will survive be kept in your handbag or office drawer.  

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When I'm choosing a nut bar I check out the nutritient panel keeping the following guidelines in mind:

  • First I check out the ingredients which need to be listed from the highest proportion ingredient to the lowest proportion ingredient.

  • I try to choose a bar with around 600kJ (140 calories). While nuts are a good source of protein, healthy fats and fibre the high fat content of nuts means they can contribute quite a bit to your kilojoule intake, so it's good to be mindful of portion sizes. A few of the options I've mentioned below are more like 800 kJ and I tend to cut those in half.

  • I like to get at least 6g of protein, and also some fibre to count towards my daily target of 25g - both protein and fibre will fill you up.

  • Sugar - I like to aim for under 10% sugar (so less than 10g per 100g). Some of the options I have included (such as the bar counter) use maltitol as a sweetener which is a high FODMAP sugar alcohols and needs to be avoided while in the elimination phase of low FODMAP diet. For those on a low FODMAP diet the Carman's Dark Choc Espresso Nut is certified low FODMAP

  • And of course they have to taste good too. Here are some of my favourite options:

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The absolute winners for me in terms of taste and nutritional profile are the Nice & Natural protein nut bars (my kids like these too), The Bar Counter protein bar and the Carman's dark choc espresso bar (low FODMAP).  Think food almond munch are always in my pantry too but you need to watch serving size here.

Do you like a nut bar?  Any favourites that I have missed?  

This isn't a sponsored post, just reporting back on a high quality, tasty supermarket finds that I like and eat myself!  If you need more snack ideas, I've listed my top 10 easy snacks for busy women here.

Rachel is a university qualified Clinical Nutritionist based in Balmain, NSW.  She is also the busy working mum of two teenagers, so is practical and realistic with her advice . Rachel offers private consultations to improve your family's health and well-being. You can find her on Facebook and Instagram for more healthy tips and tricks.