Granola bars are marketed as the quintessential on-the-go healthy snack. But behind the wholesome packaging, many of them contain more added sugar than a chocolate bar.
What we scanned
Using Nime, we scanned the barcodes of 50 of the bestselling granola bars across major supermarket chains. For each one we recorded:
- Total sugar per 100 g
- Added sugar vs. naturally occurring sugar
- The marketing claims on the front of the pack
- Hidden ingredients with misleading names (brown rice syrup, agave nectar, fruit juice concentrate)
The worst offenders
The five most sugar-dense bars averaged 32 g of sugar per 100 g — that's nearly a third of their total weight. For context, the WHO recommends no more than 25 g of added sugar per day for an adult.
The kicker: four of the top five all carried "low fat" or "natural" claims on the front of the pack.
How to read the label
When Nime scans a product, we normalize sugar content per 100 g so you can compare apples to apples. We also flag the most common sugar aliases:
- Brown rice syrup
- Agave nectar
- Cane juice
- Fruit juice concentrate
- Maltodextrin
If you see two or three of these stacked together in the ingredient list, assume the "healthy" claim is doing a lot of heavy lifting.
The takeaway
A granola bar isn't automatically a healthy choice. Check the label — or let Nime check it for you.