5 Things to Know About Kids’ Snack Bars

“The average kids’ bar is about 1 ounce, compared with just over 2 ounces for the adult bars we recently reviewed,” says Amy Keating, RD, a Consumer Reports nutritionist who led both analyses. “And they averaged 115 calories vs. 210 in the adult bars.”

Many snack and energy bars (for kids and adults) are touted as great sources of fiber and protein. But those nutrients often don’t come from just whole-food ingredients. Nine of the 17 bars we examined contained added protein from sources such as pea, soy, and whey, and nine had added fiber in the form of oat, inulin (chicory root), or tapioca fiber. Those added substances, sometimes called isolates, are extracted from their food sources, and their presence makes for a food that’s highly processed. For example, Power Crunch Kids High Protein Bar Chocolate Lava has 10 grams of protein. That’s high for a snack bar, but the first ingredient is “whey protein blend,” a mixture of heavily processed protein derived from dairy isolates and other ingredients. 

Eating bars with those ingredients occasionally is fine, but it’s probably best not to make them a daily habit. “Ideally, you want protein and fiber from whole-food sources, so kids don’t miss out on the other vitamins and nutrients in those foods,” Keating says. And eating a lot of isolated fibers and some proteins (such as whey) can cause gas, bloating, diarrhea, and stomach upset in sensitive individuals. “If your child is eating a bar to fuel up before sports practice, they may need to avoid those that are high in fiber and protein to avoid GI discomfort,” Reed says.

In our testing of adult energy bars, many of the better choices got their protein from nuts, nut butters, seeds, or egg whites. Possibly because of allergy concerns, few bars marketed to kids contain tree nuts or nut butters, although a few (including Cerebelly Smart Bars organic sweet potato-blueberry-banana and Kind Kids Blueberry Muffin bar) contain sunflower seeds or sunflower butter. None of the kids’ bars we examined contain egg whites.

It’s no secret that most kids eat more sugar than they should. And many snack bars are contributing to that. “Ideally, a bar geared toward kids should contain less than 5 grams of added sugar,” Reed says. (The American Heart Association recommends kids get no more than 25 grams of added sugars per day.) Only four of the bars we reviewed came in under the 5-gram mark. Three of them are sweetened with dates and contain no added sugars (Cerebelly Smart Bars, Happy Tot Super Foods Oat Bar, and Skout Organic Kids Snack Bar), while the Happy Tot Fiber & Protein Oat Bar has just 3 grams of added sugars.

See our selections of the best kids’ snack bars below, listed alphabetically, as well as those that didn’t make the cut, to help you choose the best option for your child.

Just like bars sold to adults, kids’ bars come adorned with multiple, healthy-sounding claims like “made with whole grains” and “only organic ingredients.” While these claims may be technically true, they often don’t tell the whole story. “For that, you really need to turn the box around and read the ingredients and the Nutrition Facts panel,” says Keating. 

If a package claim says “made with whole grains,” for instance, you’d want whole-grain oats or another type of whole grain to be near the top of the list to ensure the product has a good amount of that ingredient. Many of the bars we tested did have whole grains high up on the list. But several didn’t. For example, Clif Kid ZBar Protein Chocolate Chip Bar advertises “made with organic oats,” but oats are fourth on the ingredients list, after tapioca syrup, brown rice flour, and whey protein concentrate.

More than a third of the bars were labeled “no high fructose corn syrup.” But that doesn’t mean no added sugars—all the bars that made this claim had other sources of added sugars, such as cane sugar, honey, agave syrup, or tapioca syrup.

Also, while a bar made with all organic ingredients sounds healthy, that doesn’t always mean it’s nutritious. For example, we found that many of the bars displaying the USDA Organic seal contain more than our recommended amount of added sugar. 

As with all packaged foods, the fewer ingredients snack bars contain (and the more recognizable those ingredients are), the less processed and better for your kids the bars will be—but you still have to read labels. Lara Bar Kids Chocolate Chip Cookie Bar has just eight ingredients and no additives, for example, but it is higher in added sugars, with 8 grams per bar. Better choices might be Junkless Chewy Granola Bar Chocolate Chip (6 grams of added sugars) or Skout Organic Kids Snack Bar Chocolate Brownie (no added sugars), which are also made with a shorter list of recognizable ingredients.

If you want to know exactly what’s in the bars you feed your kids, making them yourself may be the best option. “There are lots of easy recipes online, and it allows you to customize the ingredients and amount of sugar you use,” Reed says. If you want more fiber, you can use whole-grain oats and whole-wheat flour (instead of refined white flour). To cut back on sugar, you can mix in some unsweetened applesauce or dried fruit. And adding nuts, seeds, or nut butter will bump up the protein. “You can keep experimenting until you find healthy combinations that taste good to your kids,” she says.

Our research found six kids’ snack bars that are among the lowest in added sugars (5 grams or less per bar), made with whole-grain oats, and/or tend to have fewer or less highly processed ingredients. Generally, as noted above, bars with ingredients you recognize, and fewer of them, will be healthier.

These kids’ snack bars have less to recommend them. Generally, they have higher levels of added sugars, contain fewer whole foods, or have more processed ingredients, such as added “isolated” fiber and/or protein.