How do you sort out the good and bad from the many new "healthy" snack bars on the market today? Stand in the supermarket aisles and read labels with calculator in hand? Forget it! If you've ever tried it, you know it's virtually impossible to do.

Nutripoints rates the major brands for 26 key nutrients and gives you the bottom line score for each one. The higher the number, the more nutrition, and less calories, fat, and sodium. Enrichment of Snack Bars Keep in mind that much of the nutrition in the majority of the healthy snack bars comes from enrichment, or added nutrients. The highest-scoring bars have good ingredients AND are low in the negative factors like calories, fat, cholesterol, and sodium. Still, it is always wise to check the label to make sure the bar has good quality ingredients and not just vitamins and minerals added in. Remember, the goal of a snack bar, is to give you a convenient and healthy source of calories with some nutrition to go along with them. Compare them to candy bars or soda which many people use for quick calories and energy, but score -5.0 to -10.0 Nutripoints because of the sugar, lack of fiber and other nutrients. Nutripoint Scores of Healthy Snack Bars DrSoy Protein Bar 34.5 Pounds Off Bar 29.5 Clif Luna Bar 28.5 Pure Protein Bar 25.5 Tiger's Sports Bar 25.0 Snickers Marathon Bar 23.5 Energia Bar 22.5 Power Bar (all flavors) 22.5 Power Bar Pria 21.0

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Above are the top 24 healthy snack bars listed in the new 5th Edition of Nutripoints. There are a total of 46 bars listed on pages 176-177 with scores ranging from 34.5 to -2.0. It is surprising to see that some of the bars with healthy-sounding names or from well-known health-oriented companies have very weak Nutripoint scores. The lower-rated brands are often more like candy bars--lots of calories, with very little nutrition to go along with them. They may be high in one positive nutrient, but the calories (either from fat or sugar) are so high, that their overall scores are low. Thanks to Dr.Roy E. Vartabedian for this information. www.nutripoints.com