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This Issue 03/18/2010

• Safe Haven
• Mother Dearest
• Month In Music
• Inside Giovanni's Room
• Rev-You

Consumers connote vegetables and granola bars with health. But, it’s really all about the packaging. After all, a baked potato high in fiber and vitamin C is healthy, but the deep fried version of this healthful tuber is far from a power food. Likewise, a granola bar with rolled oats, unsweetened dried fruit, and roasted nuts is healthy, but its chocolate coating, high fructose corn syrup and refined flour substitute is not. Street decided to lessen some of the confusion that the granola and cereal bar shelf poses. We sampled many of the most popular brands’ bars, compared them on a few basic criteria: taste, texture, on-the-go factor, and nutrition and declared the winners in each category.

CHOCOLATE

These soft and sweet bars recall elementary school lunch boxes and after school snacks. Calling these candy bars granola bars made them “mom approved.”

Kudos Chocolate Chip

Taste: This caramel-y milk chocolate-drizzled bar tasted like a crispy chocolate bar. While some tasters declared the bar "too sweet," most enjoyed the sugary notes.

Texture: A smooth homogeneous texture creates a chewy, not crispy, bite.

On-the-go factor: The small portion and non-sticky exterior made this bar easy to carry on the go. Although in warm months, the chocolate drizzle and base are known to stick to fingers.

Price: $3.55 for 10 bars

Chewy Chocolate Chip

Taste: Less chocolatey (dotted with chocolate chips as opposed to enrobed in chocolate) than its Kudos counterpart, this bar had milder, less sweet flavors. In particular, the use of dark chocolate cut out some of the sweetness, highlighting the brown sugar corn syrup mix that binds the bar.

Texture: Some tasters said the too-dry bar is reminiscent of “puffy plastic.”

On-the-go factor: Like Kudos, this bar is easy to carry on the go even in warm temperatures.

Price: $3.69 for 10 bars

Nutritional Winner: When candy is healthy, these bars will be too.

TRAIL MIX

The classic nut and dried fruit mix serves as a great base for many trail mix bars. Once destined for the hill, these granola bars have a chewy nutty flavor great for non-hikers as well.

KIND Cranberry Almond

Taste: Imagine a berry fruit leather melted down with nuts and puffed rice into a thin bar.

Texture: While the scattered puffed rice adds a nice contrast the overwhelmingly sticky consistency, the ultra chewy bar had a bit too much stick for our liking.

On-the-go factor: The bar proved very hard to bite and break apart, and it sticks to teeth. Bottom line, not great for an on-the-go snack.

Price: $1.99 per bar

Kashi TLC Chewy