What's for Lunch: Special K Strawberry Bar

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

An alert reader identified the Special K product in this photo of a school lunch brought from home here in D.C. as something the Kellogg company calls a "protein bar," which seems to be the popular way to sell "healthy" candy these days.

It's advertised as low-fat, but if you look under the hood, what you find is a highly processed industrial concoction of carbs and food additives coated with sugar.

The strawberry variety, seen here, may be low in fat--just five grams--but it's loaded with sugar, a whopping 15 grams, or a bit less than four teaspoons worth. Since this "protein bar" weighs in at a mere 45 grams, that means sugar constitutes one-third of the ingredients.

A virtual carbohydrate bomb, the interior of rice cereal and wheat gluten is coated with a frosting of sugar and palm oil.

"They're gross--I have a massive sweet tooth, but on the one occasion when I bought one from the vending machine at my office, it was so sweet I could barely finish it," said reader Vanessa. "The strawberry flavor is kind of chemical-tasting, too."

Little wonder. Consider the ingredients:

COATING (SUGAR, PALM KERNEL AND PALM OIL, MILK PROTEIN ISOLATE, YOGURT POWDER [CULTURED WHEY PROTEIN CONCENTRATE, CULTURED SKIM MILK, YOGURT CULTURES; HEAT-TREATED AFTER CULTURING], COLOR ADDED, SOY LECITHIN, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR), SOY PROTEIN ISOLATE, CORN SYRUP, STRAWBERRY FLAVORED FRUIT PIECES (SUGAR, CRANBERRIES, CITRIC ACID, NATURAL STRAWBERRY FLAVOR WITH OTHER NATURAL FLAVORS, ELDERBERRY JUICE CONCENTRATE FOR COLOR,SUNFLOWER OIL), INULIN, FRUCTOSE, POLYDEXTROSE, SUGAR, RICE STARCH, SOYBEAN AND PALM OIL WITH TBHQ FOR FRESHNESS, RICE CEREAL (RICE, WHEAT GLUTEN, SUGAR, DEFATTED WHEAT GERM, SALT, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, WHEY, MALT FLAVORING, REDUCED IRON, NIACINAMIDE, PYRIDOXINE HYDROCHLORIDE [VITAMIN B6], RIBOFLAVIN [VITAMIN B2], THIAMIN HYDROCHLORIDE [VITAMIN B1], FOLIC ACID, VITAMIN B12), CONTAINS TWO PERCENT OR LESS OF DEXTROSE, CALCIUM CARBONATE, GLYCERIN, SORBITOL, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR, SALT, SOY LECITHIN, ASCORBIC ACID (VITAMIN C), XANTHAN GUM, POLYSORBATE 80, D-ALPHA TOCOPHEROL (VITAMIN E), NIACINAMIDE, ZINC OXIDE, REDUCED IRON, PYRIDOXINE HYDROCHLORIDE (VITAMIN B6), VITAMIN A PALMITATE, RIBOFLAVIN (VITAMIN B2), THIAMIN HYDROCHLORIDE (VITAMIN B1), BHT FOR FRESHNESS, ALMOND FLOUR, PARTIALLY DEFATTED PEANUT FLOUR, WHEAT STARCH, VITAMIN B12, FOLIC ACID, VITAMIN D.

Here's what it looks like at the Special K website:

You'd really be better off skipping the "protein bar" entirely and focus on that fresh strawberry pictured in the background, don't you think?