This post is for you if you aren’t addicted to sugar, you aren’t trying to lose weight, and you are seeking a healthier snack option for those times when you aren’t able to carry fresh fruit or other whole foods with you.

This is the snack that I referred to last week when I gave you my weekly weigh in, the snack I was telling you about – it’s not a part of the 6-Week Body Makeover program that I am following to lose weight (!) and because it’s high in fat (even though it’s healthy fat from nuts) and contains salt, it doesn’t help me with my weight loss.

So how did I get into this? I tried it thinking that it would be a good alternative snack for an upcoming overseas trip, but even though I made sure to eat a protein with it I did want to eat more of them later. They do contain sugar and while it’s low on the list (in the Trio bars), it’s still in there. You see, I was really just trying to weasel my way into some sugar, but at least I’m putting it to good use now and blogging about it. 😉

Now if you don’t have a problem with sugar like I do (or you know someone who doesn’t), this could be a great alternative snack (see my top choice at the end of this article). They are made by Mrs. May’s Naturals and you can choose from Trio bars (mainly nuts and seeds with some dried fruit) and snack bags (nuts). These snacks are 100 times better than a donut, cookie, piece of cake, or ice cream any day!

Here’s an example of the ingredients:

Mrs. May’s Naturals, Blueberry Trio Bar –

• Cashews, almonds, pistachios, blueberries, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, dates, raisins, rice malt, natural flavors, cane juice, sea salt
• Sugar – 8g
• Total Fat – 16g

Mrs. May’s Naturals, Dry-Roasted Almond Crunch (snack bag) –

• Almonds, rice malt, cane juice, sea salt
• Sugar – 3g
• Total Fat – 13g

There are other flavors of the bars (tropical, cranberry, strawberry) as well as the bags (cashew crunch, cran-blueberry crunch) and their ingredient lists are similar. You can see that the bar has more ingredients, which puts the sugar lower on the list (rice malt and cane juice), however it does contain a higher amount of sugar grams than the snack bag.

The other thing to keep in mind is that these snacks are high in fat, and even though they contain the “good fat”, it’s still fat and is easily stored as fat in the body. That’s why the 6-Week Body Makeover keeps you off of fats during the losing process to make it easier for you to shed those unwanted pounds (I take flax seed oil caplets to supplement). They also contain salt, which causes my weight loss to stall.

But you know what? If you do have some weight to lose and are taking baby steps (nothing wrong with that!!) and you normally eat all sorts of other sweets, I bet you could shed some pounds by replacing the chocolate, donuts, cakes, cookies, and candy bars with the Mrs. May’s Naturals snacks. I don’t think you’d lose as quickly as you would if you ate only whole foods (with portion control), but this would be a step in a much healthier direction.

I’d recommend Mrs. May’s Naturals any day instead of a candy bar, and even some of the other “health” bars you could choose from. For example, I came across another one (KeriBars – I didn’t try these) that is being marketed as healthy and it’s first ingredient is sugar (brown rice syrup)! Additionally, each flavor contains sugar as the third ingredient, differing in name depending on the flavor of the bar. Mrs. May’s is a much better choice.

In the end, my first recommendation would be to buy a bag of unsalted, unsweetened, plain nuts or seeds and eat those with some fresh fruit. Whole foods sans the refined sugar, flour, and salt are always my top choice. The Mrs. May’s snacks though are still a great alternative if you’re staring at a donut in a convenience store – better yet, just get out of that store! 😉

I’m submitting this post to Char’s group writing project that she’s running with Randa Clay until March 12 at Essential Keystrokes. The creative challenge is to write a post inspired by the title of a famous marketing slogan (if you like group writing projects check it out). I did a take-off on “tastes great, less filling”; Mrs. May’s snacks do taste great and with the fat from the nuts they are very filling, which is a good thing.

Have you tried any of the Mrs. May’s Naturals snacks? Did you like them?