TASTY....BUT IS IT HEALTHY?

Several weeks ago when my other half was at Woolworths doing the grocery shopping he was handed (at the checkout) a sample bag of goodies.  There was shampoo, conditioner, hand cream, fabric softener etc.  You name it and it was there.  There were also two little bars, one of which was intended for lunch boxes and seemed reasonably healthy, but the other one was a NEW 23g bar made by a very well known breakfast cereal manufacturer.  MOH and I decided we'd eat half each which meant we both had 9.2gms carbs and 3.4gms of sugar.  The complete bar itself of course had 18.4gms of carbs and 6.7gms of sugar.   Perhaps OK for a 'tween meals snack if you are not overweight or diabetic so if you like really sweet things then go for it.

I carefully checked the ingredients list as we are advised to do and which we do on a regular basis.  First of all I checked on fats and noticed they were mainly vegetable fats (no idea which vegetable this was obtained from) and PALM OIL which we've been warned against using.  Just for the fun of it here is the ingredients list:

CORNFLAKES 48% = SUGAR, salt, MALT EXTRACT, vitamins C and E, niacin, riboflavin, thiamin, folate, iron, zinc oxide.  (Yes, the vitamins and minerals are good for us but salt as well as sugar?).

CHOCOLATE COMPOUND 15% (there is a thin layer of chocolate on the bottom of this bar) = SUGAR, vegetable fat, MILK SOLIDS, cocoa power, emulsifiers, SOY LECITHIN 476.492, flavour, salt, GLUCOSE, DEXTROSE, SUGAR, MALTODEXTRIN, vegetable oils, hydrogenated soybean oil, antioxidant 320, hydrogenated PALM oil, sorbitol, glycerol, MALT EXTRACT, flavour and soy lecithin.

I know the whole bar only weighed 23g so you don't get much of any one item in any quantity but there is just so much sugar of different types and if it is already that sweet why does it also need sorbitol and glycerol?

I must admit MOH and I both enjoyed the couple of mouthfuls we each had of this bar but we definitely won't be buying it.  Too much sugar altogether and that is something we can do without on a daily basis.  It seems harmless enough but then so do so many foodstuffs today.  The more they update the ingredients list the better it will be for everyone.  It did strike me as strange that 48% + 15% only adds up to 63% so I wonder what the other 37% consists of??

Incidentally this tiny bar had 63mg of salt and nearly 100 calories.  Enough said.