Nature Valley Healthy Heart Honey Nut Granola Bar

By: Tanya Taylor, PhD | Feb 12, 2007

Bars are rapidly becoming one of my favorite snacks as the focus is shifting away from protein bars and towards ones that aim to promote health whether it be by having a higher fiber content or including health promoting ingredients. Nature Valley has a line out called Healthy Heart. The bars are "good" source of fiber and have 0.4 grams of phytosterols per bar.

Phytosterols (0.8 grams or more) have been proven to reduce cholesterol levels in many animal and human studies. There is an excellent summary of the research as well as information about phytosterols at SpringBoard4Health.com [link].

There are 2 varieties of Nature Valley Healthy Heart Honey Nut Granola Bar, Oatmeal Raisin and Honey Nut, which is the one that I tried. The honey nut bar was delicious. I could taste the nuts (almonds) in every single bite. I was a little disappointed that the first ingredient in a product with the word healthy in it's name is sugar - high "maltose" corn syrup -" followed a little later in the ingredients list by sugar, fructose AND high fructose corn syrup" (and don't forget there is also honey in this). I could have done with a little less sugar frankly.

One 40 gram bar has 160 calories, 4 grams of total fat, which is 6% of the recommended daily amount (RDA), 0.5 grams of saturated fat (2% of the RDA), no trans fat, no cholesterol, 115 milligrams of sodium (5% of the RDA), 3 grams of protein and 28 grams of total carbohydrates, which includes 13 grams of sugars and 3 grams of fiber (11% of the RDA).

I was impressed with the taste, and the fact that the Nature Valley Healthy Heart Chewy Granola Bar has phytosterols. While the sugar content reported on the label was not excessively high, I was not impressed with all the sugar I saw on the ingredients list. And just remember that to even have the possibility of getting the "cholesterol lowering" effect of phytosterols, you would have to eat 2 of these bars daily.

I probably might buy this again if I was worried about cholesterol, since this may be a good way to get some "cholesterol fighting power" in the diet - especially if you use it to replace something not-so-good-for you i.e. some things that you are eating that are high in saturated fats. On the other hand, it is more likely that I would buy phytosterol supplements /pills, and forgo all the sugar.

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