Fruit and nut snacks

Quick, portable and widely available

Increasingly, more of us are aware of the health consequences of too much sugar and saturated fat in our diet.

As a result, food companies have been quick to produce and market ‘healthier’ snacks.

It seems rarely a week goes by without a new product being added to our supermarket shelves to tempt us, with a whole variety now on offer.

'Healthy' snacks - how healthy are they?

With so much choice, we thought it would be helpful to take a closer look at a few so you really know what you’re putting in your shopping basket.

And, although we’re bombarded with health messages telling us to reduce our sugar, saturated fat and salt intake, you’d be forgiven for thinking you need a biology degree to know how to spot these sources...

...particularly as marketing claims sometimes obscure what is hiding in some products.

Sugar and your diet

. Free sugar is any sugar that’s been added to food or drink products by the manufacturer, cook or consumer – essentially, any sugar that wasn’t already there.

This is the kind of sugar we generally eat too much of. Free sugars also includes sugars naturally found in honey, syrups and fruit juice. Sugars added to food or drink can be listed in various ways, including: sucrose, glucose, syrup, dextrose, honey, fructose, treacle, molasses, lactose, corn syrup or fruit juice concentrates.

Fruit itself is fine, and the sugar it contains doesn’t count as ‘free sugar’. In fact, several of these snacks contain only fruit and have no added sugar whatsoever. They’re still graded as ‘red’ though, simply because of the natural sugar in the fruit which doesn’t count as the ‘free sugar’ you need to avoid.

And, depending on your portion size, fruit will count towards 1 of your 5 a day – however, do watch how much you eat because as the fruit is dried, it’s not bulky like fresh fruit, and it’s therefore very easy to ‘overdo’ it and eat more calories and carbs than you intended.

In terms of dental health, it’s recommended any dried fruit is eaten as part of a meal, i.e. as pudding, and not eaten in between meals as it sticks to your teeth and can cause dental cavities.

Some of these snacks do have added sugar in them - this is clearly listed on the label.

Saturated fat

Too much saturated fat can raise your cholesterol levels. Sources of saturated fat in these snacks included palm oil and coconut oil. 

Salt

Too much salt can raise your blood pressure. Some of these products have added salt. 

A source of carbs

Some of these portable snacks are good sources of carbs so can be useful to carry around for when you are in need of a snack, particularly if you treat your diabetes with insulin or medication that can cause hypos.

How did the fruit and nut snacks perform?

Our selection can be seen below.

We’ve colour coded these snacks using the government’s traffic light system for ‘front of pack’ labelling, which has been around a while now and provides an easy way to check at a glance how healthy a food or drink product is.

The labels show how many calories are in the food or drink, and also whether the food is low (green), medium (amber) or high (red) in fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt. Try to choose snacks with more greens and ambers and fewer reds.

Remember, don’t forget the humble fresh fruit which is equally portable and something we all should be eating more of as part of a healthy, balanced diet.

*These nutritional values were accurate at the time of publication, but some of these values may have changed. Please check the food labels for the latest nutritional information.

Graze Smokehouse BBQ Crunch

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Whitworths Shots - Fruity Biscuit

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Waitrose Love Life Dried Apple Slices

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Snack Organisation Freeze-dried Pineapple

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Tesco Wholefoods Chewy Banana

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Sun Grown Trail Mix

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The Food Doctor Wholeful Grains - Chipotle Chilli

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Sunmaid Raisins

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Tree Of Life Organic Naked Cashews

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Fruit Bowl Yogurt Raisins

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Urban Fruit Cheeky Cherry

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Urban Fruit Smashing Strawberry

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The Food Doctor Roasted Bean Mix

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Jumble Bee Blissful Banana Chips