Since discovering them some years ago, I have always had a fondness for breakfast bars - compressed bars of fruit, cereal and nuts that make a great snack at any time of the day. Up until I was diagnosed with diabetes, I used to eat large numbers of these things but I haven’t touched them since because they do tend to be full of sugar. I was thus very interested to discover these Atkins Nutritional bars available from the Low Carb Megastore.
Nutrition
They come in quite a number of varieties – I have tried Oatmeal Raisin, Cinnamon bun, Cranberry Almond and Apple Crisp. They vary slightly in their contents, but they typically have about 15g carbohydrates, with about 3g sugar per bar. As well as the usual fruit and cereals, they contain soy and other proteins and a lot of added fibre. Comparing them with a typical “normal” breakfast bar they have about half the carbohydrates and a quarter the sugar, twice the fibre and four times the protein.
On the box they claim to have an extremely low GI – with only 5g of the carbohydrates impacting upon blood sugar. I am usually sceptical about this sort of claim, but in this case from my experience there might be something to it (probably due to the high fibre and protein). Eating one of these bars seems to raise my BG by about 1 mmol/l – peaking at about 1 hour and then dropping back very slowly – they certainly seem to have quite a low GI for me. Your mileage may vary!
Taste
They are surprisingly good granola bars of the “chewey” style. If I hadn’t known that they were low carb I really don’t think I would have guessed. They were a little too sweet for my taste (sucralose), but no more so than some conventional breakfast bars, and many people will like this.
Cost
They cost £4.85-£4.89 for a box of five bars – once you add postage to this, they are a lot more expensive than conventional breakfast bars (usually in the range of £1.50-£2.50 for a box of 6).
Conclusions
These are lower carb rather than truly low (15g in one small bar is still a fair amount). However, they do seem to be very low GI. They cost over twice the price of ordinary cereal bars, but they taste pretty good. I don’t think I am going to eat these very regularly, but I will certainly keep a stock of them - I can see them being a useful emergency breakfast substitute for days that one is running late.
Nutrition
They come in quite a number of varieties – I have tried Oatmeal Raisin, Cinnamon bun, Cranberry Almond and Apple Crisp. They vary slightly in their contents, but they typically have about 15g carbohydrates, with about 3g sugar per bar. As well as the usual fruit and cereals, they contain soy and other proteins and a lot of added fibre. Comparing them with a typical “normal” breakfast bar they have about half the carbohydrates and a quarter the sugar, twice the fibre and four times the protein.
On the box they claim to have an extremely low GI – with only 5g of the carbohydrates impacting upon blood sugar. I am usually sceptical about this sort of claim, but in this case from my experience there might be something to it (probably due to the high fibre and protein). Eating one of these bars seems to raise my BG by about 1 mmol/l – peaking at about 1 hour and then dropping back very slowly – they certainly seem to have quite a low GI for me. Your mileage may vary!
Taste
They are surprisingly good granola bars of the “chewey” style. If I hadn’t known that they were low carb I really don’t think I would have guessed. They were a little too sweet for my taste (sucralose), but no more so than some conventional breakfast bars, and many people will like this.
Cost
They cost £4.85-£4.89 for a box of five bars – once you add postage to this, they are a lot more expensive than conventional breakfast bars (usually in the range of £1.50-£2.50 for a box of 6).
Conclusions
These are lower carb rather than truly low (15g in one small bar is still a fair amount). However, they do seem to be very low GI. They cost over twice the price of ordinary cereal bars, but they taste pretty good. I don’t think I am going to eat these very regularly, but I will certainly keep a stock of them - I can see them being a useful emergency breakfast substitute for days that one is running late.
