The Junk Food Nutritionist

Over the past month, I’ve looked at several healthy-seeming snack foods and shown you which aren’t as healthy as you might think.  Today, I have one more snack for you…Flavored squeezable applesauce pouches.  You might be thinking, “No way is that healthy. It has to be full of added sugar and artificial flavoring.” But that’s not true. At least, it’s not true for Musselman’sSqueezables . I’d call these a health food. In addition to unsweetened applesauce, Musselman’s Squeezables come in fun flavors: Sour Raspberry, Sour Cherry, Sour Lemon, Strawberry, and Honey Cinnamon.     None of them contain artificial flavors or artificial colors. The Honey Cinnamon applesauce contains honey, but none of the others contain added sugars.  The main ingredient, of course, is apples. The three berry-flavored ones contain raspberry puree, cherry puree, and strawberry puree respectively. The lemon one contains lemon juice. Of course, there’s cinn...

It’s National Nutrition Month and we’re looking at snacks. Which are health foods and which are junk foods? Someone asked for my opinion on this week’s product: Go Macro Bars. To be honest, I’d never eaten one before.   So, I had to sample one, especially after I found them for a ridiculously low price. I bought a whole box of 12 for only $2! These bars of organic, vegan, Kosher, gluten-free, and non-GMO. But, none of those terms automatically make this product a health food.  In fact, I’d say this falls more in the spectrum of junk food.  Let’s look at the ingredients to really understand why…

We all need a grab-and-go snack sometimes. Often, a granola bar is an easy choice because it can be eaten with one hand. It doesn't even have to be a clean hand because your hand will never touch it; just eat it straight from the wrapper. But, there are a lot of different granola bar and granola-bar-like things on the market. Their status as health food or junk food varies. Where do KIND Pressed Bars fit? I'd call these a health food! This is a health food because it is made up of only a few ingredients, all of which are healthy foods. KIND's website lists 6 flavors: Apricot Pear Carrot Beet, Pineapple Coconut Chia, Pineapple Banana Kale Spinach, Mango Apple Chia, Cherry Apple Chia, and Strawberry Apple Chia. Those aren't just the flavor names; those are the ingredients. The Mango Apple Chia flavored bar only contains mango, apples, and chia seeds. Although I consider this to be a health food instead of a junk food, I still recommend eating it in mod...

A bodybuilder friend told me about “healthy,” vegan cookies by Lenny & Larry .   My sweet tooth said, “I have to try them.”   I soon found The Complete Cookie at my corner drugstore. There were only two flavors available in store and each individual cookie cost $1.99.   But, online Lenny & Larry sell 11 flavors: snickerdoodle, chocolate chip, birthday cake, coconut chocolate chip, double chocolate peanut butter swirl, double chocolate, peanut butter, white chocolate macadamia, lemon poppy seed, oatmeal raisin, and pumpkin spice.   These cookies are vegan and Kosher. They’re made without high fructose corn syrup, soy, artificial sweeteners, sugar alcohols, and partially hydrogenated oils. They must be healthy, right?   Well, no. These are healthier cookies, but they’re still junk food...

It's National Nutrition Month! At work, I'm celebrating it with a series on MyPlate . However, I'm going to focus on junk food here because, of course, I am the Junk Food Nutritionist and love to eat. So, for the next few weeks, we'll be looking at items that might be healthy foods in some ways and might be junk foods in other ways. First up is Greek yogurt. Greek yogurt can be a healthy food. It has protein and calcium, which we need to be healthy. But there are many Greek yogurt products on the market. They're not all the same and they're not all equally healthy. One major difference is the ingredient list. Some Greek yogurts are thick due to straining or removing the liquid portion; others are thickened with added ingredients. Today, I will breakdown the ingredients of one flavored Greek yogurt product with raspberry chocolate and toasted coconut mix-ins.   In case you can't see the picture, here are the ingredients again...