Granola bars are one of those “healthy foods” that tend to have way too much sugar. I’ve searched to find out which granola bars are lowest in added sugar while also having a short list of simple ingredients.
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While the healthiest granola bars are usually the ones made at home, these days I rarely find the time to make that happen. If you do find time to whip some up, I like this healthy granola bar recipe by Erin Lives Whole.
If you are in the same boat as me, join me on this quest to find a few low sugar granola bars to use as quick breakfast or grab-n-go snack options.
This post focuses specifically on granola bars rather than protein or meal replacement bars. All of the bars in this post have oats except one and all have nuts. Beyond that, they all have that granola bar look … hard to argue with science like that ;).
What to Look for In a Healthy Granola Bar
When I’m looking for a healthy granola bar, I’m looking for very low added sugar, and it’s icing on the cake if I can find this in combination with organic ingredients. Organic ingredients are especially important when grains are involved as glyphosate (Round Up) is used as a drying agent for traditional grain crops.
This means the crops are sprayed just before harvest for reasons related to convenience. It’s not so convenient for the consumer though. Nuts don’t get a free pass either. Many nuts are heavily sprayed or sprayed with particularly dangerous pesticides.
Which Granola Bars are Healthy?
Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of granola bars that are super low in sugar and also organic, but there are a few. The three granola bars in this post that check both of those boxes are Cascadian Farms Blueberry Vanilla Bars, Clif Nut Butter Bars and GoMarco Bars.
Healthy Granola Bar Brands
Here are my top finds for low sugar granola bars with simple, healthy ingredients. One thing to be aware of when comparing bars is the serving size. This can be responsible for an uneven comparison of added sugar.
For example, Made Good granola bars only have 6 grams of sugar, but they are half the size of some of the bars that made my list, so I didn’t feature them in this post as the primary goal is to find the granola bar with the least added sugar.
On the other hand, GoMarco bars have 11-12 grams of added sugar, but they are twice the size of some of the other granola bars. If your you have to eat two to take the edge off your hunger, it changes things a bit.
That being said, I’ll reference the size of each granola bar as well as the sugar content, so that you can make a fair comparison.
Kind Bars
The first bars on my list are Kind Bars but not just any of them. The varieties with more nuts have lower sugar than their standard granola bars. Kind bars are not organic, but they are non-GMO.
Their standard Kind nut bar has 4 grams of sugar in a 40-gram bar, which is hard to beat for a store-bought granola bar. Several other brands offer nut bars that are similar to Kind bars.
Two popular examples are Kirkland’s Nut Bars (Costco) and Good to Gather (Target). These copycat bars are also low in sugar with about 4 grams per 40-gram bars with nuts as the first ingredient and a short, simple ingredient list.
The copycat nut bars tend to be cost a bit less. All of these nut bars are great options for low sugar granola bars if you don’t mind the crunchy, nutty texture. My kids will eat these but prefer Kind Thins, which have chopped nuts rather than whole nuts or large pieces.
Kind Thins have 4 grams of sugar in a 21-gram bar so note the smaller bar size, but even if you double it, they still contain substantially less sugar than traditional granola bars.
Cascadian Farms Bars
So, these Cascadian Farms Blueberry Vanilla Bars are fairly new, I think, or at least new to me. I used to buy their no sugar added granola, which has an almost identical recipe. If the bars taste like the granola, then they are sure to be yummy.
These bars (and the granola) are unicorns as no sugar added granola is pretty much unheard of. These no sugar added Cascadian Farms Bars are sweetened with dates.
Clif Nut Butter Bars
My family is a fan of Cliff Nut Butter Bars, especially my son who loves all things peanut butter. They contain just 6-7 grams of sugar depending on the variety in a 50-gram bar. This is about half as much sugar as typical Clif bars.
The Clif Nut Butter bars come in chocolate peanut butter, chocolate chip peanut butter and just peanut butter. They offer a great hearty taste, and the nut butter is filling.
The Clif Nut Butter bars, like most Clif Bars, are chewy rather than crunchy, but they definitely have some texture them.
Autumn’s Gold Grain Free Bars
Autumn’s Gold Grain Free Bars are a great choice for a healthy granola bar with less sugar. They don’t have oats in them, so they are a grain free/gluten free granola bar option. They are also non-GMO and paleo certified.
These grain-free bars have 5 grams of sugar per 35-gram bar, The flavor is subtly sweet, and they are a mix between crunchy and chewy.
Costco tends to carry these in bulk, which can save you a chunk of money on these. If you are curious what other healthy snacks Costco has to offer, there’s a post for that: 13 Best Clean Eating Snacks to Buy at Costco.
GoMarco Bars
Go Marco bars are gluten free, organic and non-GMO. The full-size bars contain 11-12 grams of sugar, but they are large at 65 grams, which is nearly double some of the other bars in this post.
If you don’t want that much sugar in one snack or prefer a smaller size for your little ones, GoMarco mini or their kid’s bar may be a better fit. These are both about half the size or the regular bars and have 6 grams of sugar.
Which Granola Bars Have the Least Added Sugar?
Cascadian Farms Blueberry Vanilla Granola Bars have no added sugar while Kind Nut and Dark Chocolate are not far behind with just 4 grams of sugar per 40-gram bar.
Next in line are Clif Nut Butter Bars, Nature’s Gold Grain Free Bars and GoMarco bars, which all have 30%-40% less sugar than the average granola bar.
Conclusion
Thankfully, there are several yummy options for low sugar granola bars. I hope you spotted at least one that looks good to you. As always, thanks for stopping by and trusting me to share information with you!
