What's a 'normal' amount of sugar in a snack?

Everything is relative so you can't really answer that. I mean a cup of pineapple has like 16g, a cup of icecream, on the other hand, has 34g (depending on brand flavor etc). So compared to pineapple (a very sweet fruit it's pretty high) compared to icecream it's low.

For most people sugar isn't something you need to worry about that much for weight loss, within reason. That being said if you're trying to watch your sugar intake if you love cliff bars eat them.

For me I try to watch how much added sugar I take in (this means suagr I get from sources other then fruit). I wouldn't eat any bar that has that much sugar in it. I'd rather have my quest bar with almost no sugar in it and enjoy getting my sugar from another place.

It's going to depend on why you're watching sugars - just want to cut back? Then eat lower sugar items the rest of the day and you should be fine. For a medical reason? That'll need more info to determine.

mattkdawson wrote: »

I know there's probably a complex answer to this, but what do you guys look for as far as grams of sugar in snacks.

Example: I really like clif bars and eat one almost every day. They have about 21g of sugar in them. I have no idea if that's good or bad or average.

Just trying to educate myself a little bit on what a healthy choice is

My trainer suggested a normal amount of daily sugar intake to be between 25-40 grams.

I wouldn't look at a single item as an issue but at your daily total. Cliff bars are yummy, but if you're comparing them to quest bars, well quest bars are more expensive for a reason - they are typically less calories, and less sugar and more protein and fiber. If those are non-issues for you and you love your daily cliff bar, then go for it! 21 grams is not over your daily total... just keep an eye on that.

So in a lot of the fitness magazine's I read when they do articles on good and bad supplement bars the criteria they usually look at is how natural the ingredients are, fibre content, and sugar content. They consider Cliff bars to essentially be the equivalent or worse than chocolate bars.

Here is the ingredient list of a snicker's bar: Sugar, Roasted Peanuts, Glucose Syrup (Sources include Wheat), Milk Solids, Cocoa Mass, Cocoa Butter, Vegetable Fat, Salt, Emulsifier (Soy Lecithin), Egg White, Natural Flavour (Vanilla Extract). Calories for 36 gm bar 177, fat 8.8, carbs 20.5, sugar 17.9, fibre 1.3, protein 3.1.

Here is the ingredient list of a Cliff bar: Organic Brown Rice Syrup, Clifpro (Soy Rice Crisps [Soy Protein Isolate, Rice Lfour, Malt Extract], Organic Roasted Soybeans, Organic Soy Flour), Organic Rolled Oats, Organic Evaporated Cane Juice, Organic Peanut Butter (Organic Peanuts, Aslt), Peanut Flour, Peanuts, Clif Crunch (Apple Fiber, Organic Oat Fiber, Organic Milled Flaxseed, Inulin [Chicory Extract], Psyllium), Organic Date Paste, Natural Flavors, Sea Salt. Calories for a 68 gm bar 250, fat 6, carbs 42, sugar 20, fibre 5, protein 11 gm.

Both have sugar as the first ingredient, never a good sign in a healthy snack (brown rice syrup and evaporated cane juice are just forms of sugar, no better no worse, but it sounds healthier on a label right). The fact that the ingredients in the cliff bar are mostly organic really means nothing nutritionally in a processed bar.

So you be the judge. If it's worth it to you than eat it, but it's a treat.

I personally like SimplyWhey Bars for a snack, high fibre, high protein, low sugar, very few ingredients, all natural.