Fresh fruit is best, of course. But if your child won't eat fresh fruit, fruit snacks that actually contain fruit and no added sugars might be an alternative. These fruit snacks are nutritionally better than fruit-flavored snacks such as Betty Crocker Fruit Roll-ups that contain corn syrup and sugar.

Of the nine fruit snacks Consumer Reports tested, we found good nutritional choices in the three Fruitabu Organic Smoooshed Fruit Fruit Twirls flavors, two Stretch Island Fruit Co. flavors, the Sunsweet Smart 70-Calorie Packs Mediterranean Apricots, and Sun-Maid Washington Apples. Look for "clean" ingredient labels (not too many nonfruit additives), no added sugars, and more fiber. But Sun-Maid was also the least favorite of the apple snacks among our kid testers, getting the lowest score for flavor, texture, and preference overall.

Kids who are used to the familiar sugary snacks may be turned off by the fruit snacks we tested. One of our testers frankly said, "Hated everything—I thought we were testing fruit snacks, not snacks made out of fruit." So you may need to experiment with different types and flavors to find one your child likes.

What we found: Thirty kid testers ages 6 to 16 tried out three brands of apple fruit snacks at home and told us how they tasted. Another 60 children ranging in age from 6 to 13 came to Consumer Reports' test labs in Yonkers, N.Y., to taste six different fruit snack products, including fruit leathers and dried fruit. Consumer Reports also evaluated nutritional content and price for all of the fruit snacks tested.

Among the apple fruit snacks tested by the home panel of kids, the Fruitabu Organic apple had the highest overall Rating; 53 percent of the testers preferred it over the other two apple snacks. Take this with a grain of sugar, though: 27 percent said they didn't like any of them.

Of the six other types of fruit snacks tested by the on-site kid testers, none had more fans than rejectors, though Fruitabu Organic's strawberry and Stretch Island Fruit Co.'s apple garnered the most positive reactions. But the Fruitabu grape snack and Sunsweet mango snack had the strongest negative responses—most kids said they would not eat them again.

Nutritionally, these fruit snacks range from 45 to 145 calories, 0 to 7 grams of fat (all but one have 0 to 1.5 grams), 9 to 22 grams of sugar, and less than 1 to 2 grams of fiber (based on package serving size).

Some fruit snacks labeled as being a certain flavor don't list it as the primary ingredient; for example, Stretch Island Fruit Co. raspberry snack lists apple puree concentrate as its first ingredient. Some contain added sugars (Seneca Crispy Apple Chips Original and Sunsweet Smart 70 Calorie Packs Premium Thailand Mango) and/or oil (Seneca and Fruitabu fruit snacks), which contribute to the sugar and fat content.

Think an apple chip has less fat than a potato chip? You're right, but it's close: Seneca Crispy Apple Chips Original contains 7 grams of fat per 1-ounce serving vs. 10 grams of fat in the same serving size of potato chips. The fruit snack with the cleanest ingredient line is Stretch Island Fruit Co. apple snack, which contains only apple puree concentrate, natural lemon juice concentrate, and natural apple flavor.

Fruit snacks range in price from 46 cents to 78 cents per serving. Even though serving sizes varied from 0.5 ounces for Stretch Island to 1.4 ounces for Sun-Maid Washington Apples, price was not related to serving size (the lowest price did not always equate with the smallest serving size). Most serving sizes were less than or equal to 1 ounce.