When you're trying to pick the right munch for your midday snack or your kid's lunchbox, the choices may seem endless. But if you’re aiming to follow Uncle Sam's advice for nutritious noshing, your options narrow down quickly. University of Massachusetts Amherst food scientists are pointing to just three types of fruit snacks – dried fruit, fruit puree, and canned fruit in juice – that make the cut based on federal dietary guidelines for healthy snacking. And among these, it's dried fruit that's coming out on top, with the highest nutrient density and fiber content, and importantly, the lowest of the lows in added sugar.
Chomping on gummies might be fun, but these fruit-flavored snacks sit at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to nutrients. In a study featured in the journal Nutrients, researchers including extension professor Amanda Kinchla and assistant professor Alissa Nolden, conducted a thorough comb-through of what's out there. They determined that fruit-flavored snacks, along with other low contenders like canned fruit not packed in juice and dried flavored fruit, are bogged down with additional sugar and deliver scant fiber. What's more, Americans aren't anywhere close to meeting the recommended five daily servings of fruit, with a whopping 80% falling short – making the right choice in fruit snacks even more crucial to boost that intake.
Kinchla and Nolden didn't just take a cursory glance at the options. They delved deep, analyzing the nutritional content of a staggering 1,497 fruit snack products. They accessed this data from the Mintel Global New Products Database, getting their hands on nutritional profiles for a comprehensive list defined as products made mainly from fruit ingredients. The study employed the Nutrient Rich Foods Index to score these snacks on an overall nutrition quality scale that considers key desirable nutrients like protein and fiber, against those best enjoyed in moderation, like added sugar and sodium.
A significant part of their research was to figure out which fruit snacks can be deemed as most nutritious – a study of its kind that had never been done before. "We were trying to connect the dots between all the nutrients, which is the advantage of the NRF – to be able to look at multiple nutrients at the same time," Nolden told UMass News. They weren't just looking at serving sizes, either. The team also calculated added sugar and fiber content based on what the FDA considers a normal amount to consume per eating occasion, to even out the serving discrepancies among different fruit snack categories.
The conclusions pointed towards a need for tweaking our fruit snacks to make them healthier. As stated in the study, "Reformulation of fruit snacks is needed… Formed fruit and fruit-based bars could be lower in added sugar to become a more nutritious fruit snack option. Canned fruit [with added sugar] and fruit-flavored snacks need more reformulation, as they are low in nutrient density and fiber content and high in added sugar." So, if you're on the hunt for a fruity bite, better bet on those that are naturally sweet and packed with the good stuff – and keep an eye out for those sugary traps.
