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Nature Valley Crunchy Oats & Honey Bar | Chewsday Review

We’re on a bit of a muesli bar theme here, and today’s Chewsday Review features Nature Valley Crunchy Oats & Honey bar. How does it compare to the Carman’s and Mother Earth varieties? Let’s see..

Ingredients

Positives

Negatives

These bars have a high fat content of 18g/100g. Usually total fat isn’t a huge concern, but I’m not impressed by this when there aren’t any added nuts or seeds to account for the fat. All of it comes from the sunflower oil. This is also a lot higher than many other muesli bars.
The sugar content of Oaty Slices is also extremely high at 27.9g per 100g, especially considering this is ALL from added sugar. This sugar comes from a variety of sources including the sugar, honey and molasses.
The sodium content of these bars also seem to be unnecessarily high at 260mg of sodium per 100g. This is below the general recommendations, but is very high for a sweet product.

Marketing

“100% wholegrain oats” As is all of the oats added are wholegrains (yet it’s impossible for an oat not to be a wholegrain). The bar itself only contains 63% oats.
”NATURAL oats and honey” as opposed to unnatural oats and honey (and the added white sugar?) Natural does not necessarily equal good for you.
”Lactose free.” This is super strange given that muesli bars would have no lactose (unless they’re yoghurt topped and even then the amount would be tiny.)

Alternatives

These are a sugar, fat and salt filled snack marketed as a wholesome oat bar. Hang on, we’ve seen these before in another brand- they’re almost exactly the same as the Mother Earth Oaty bars. Don’t be fooled.
If you want a ‘muesli-style’ bar then I’d prefer Carman’s fruit & nut bars or some of the Uncle Toby’s muesli bars with a lower saturated fat, sugar and sodium content. More reviews of these coming up!