One healthy snack I like is the Bear Naked single-serve packs. I buy the 6-pack unit called “Fruit and Nut.” It’s a small box that comes with 6 tiny bags that each contain 1.35oz of granola. I like to eat them as my after-dinner snack sometimes, around 9:00 or 9:30pm.

Here’s what I like about this snack, what I don’t and my conclusion:

What do I like about this snack?

1. They are super easy – I just buy the 6-pack, put it on the counter in my kitchen and have one bag at a time (hopefully). Related to this point is that they are pre-portioned for me (as long as I stop at one bag), like the 100-calorie snack packs that are becoming all the rage. It has been proven that most people are likely to eat all of what is in front of them, so if we have pre-portioned snacks that come in reasonable or small portions, this helps us to decrease the chances that we’ll overeat.
2. The granola tastes really good.
3. The ingredients are all natural (except it is not clear whether synthetic or vegetable glycerin is used in this product - see number #4 below).
4. High in fiber – this tiny package gives you 12% of your recommended daily intake of fiber, which is great for such a small amount of food

What do I not like about this snack?

1. I love berries and I never get enough berries in any granola I eat. This one is no exception – not enough berries.
2. A lot of calories. Each 1.35oz package has 170 calories! That’s 125.93 calories per ounce! That’s a lot. You run the risk of not being full after eating such a small amount of food and you’ve already had 170 calories.
3. There’s a lot of fat for a small amount of food. Not really in terms of a 2,000 calorie daily intake of fat, but again considering the tiny amount of food you are eating, this food is very high in fat. And, out of the 170 calories in this small package, 80 are calories from fat. Almost half of the calories in this snack are coming from fat. As a comparison, I recently bought a bag of pretzels that are Bachman Original Twist, Brick Oven, Flame Baked Pretzels whose primary ingredient is “soft red winter wheat flour.” (Wow - that is a lot of marketing.) Marketing aside, the pretzels are pretty good. These pretzels by comparison have 100 calories per serving and only 10 of those calories come from fat. That is a .10 fat-to-calorie ratio. The Bear Naked Fruit and Nut granola’s fat-to-calorie ratio is .47! Big difference. The fat used in this product is good fat, however, so this is not all bad news, but the point is that it’s a lot of fat for the amount of food you are eating.
4. Glycerin. There is an ingredient listed in parentheses after the raisins and cranberries that may be synthetic. It’s called glycerin. This is only a potentially bad point for this snack since I need to do some more research to find out whether it’s bad for us or not. UPDATE: The Center For Science In The Public Interest has a report on food additives and which are safe or not, and has rated glycerin as "SAFE: The additive appears to be safe." The CSPI says about glycerin, "Maintains water content: Marshmallows, candy, fudge, baked goods. In nature, glycerin forms the backbone of fat and oil molecules. The body uses it as a source of energy or as a starting material in making more-complex molecules."

My conclusion: 

Like most things, the Bear Naked single-serve Fruit and Nut has its good points and bad points, but overall I think that if I can eat only one 1.35oz pack at a time, I can enjoy myself without putting forth much effort and still be pretty healthy. Would I eat this every night? No – too much fat and too many extra calories. Three times a week, one bag at a time? I can live with that! 

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