The hockey game has just wrapped up and the team of ravenous five and six year-olds eagerly awaits their post-game treat.
“Mmm, a granola bar,” says one boy, who wolfs down the bar as his mom helps him out of his gear.
This scene plays out every week at my son’s hockey games and likely, at hundreds of others. While these tykes relish this sweet treat every week, I can’t help but think there are healthier granola options that will taste just as delicious and actually be nutritious.
“Parents get these kinds of granola bars because they taste good and they know every kid will eat it,” says Casey Krebs, an artisan granola maker. “But parents can find a healthier and tastier granola brand by looking at the ingredients. The main rule is, if you don’t know what the ingredient is, or if it sounds too scientific, don’t get it.”
After hearing that, I took a perusal of the ingredients in the granola bar. The litany of items in the tiny 34 gram bar included fructose, glucose, cocoa butter, vegetable monoglycerides, fancy molasses and salt. Far from healthy!
Krebs explains that healthy granola typically consists of rolled oats, seeds (pumpkin or flax) and dried berries, such as cranberries. To spruce it up, she often adds some honey or cinnamon. “When you’re looking to buy or make granola, you should be seeking things like organic oats and raw pumpkin seeds and look for it being non-GMO and sulphite free,” Krebs reveals.
Served as a treat, snack or as a breakfast cereal with milk or yogurt, granola offers a healthy, filling mix that is high in fibre and protein and can help lower cholesterol. And kids like it. “It’s becoming really popular with kids,” Krebs relates. “It tastes great and parents like that it’s a healthy snack they can include in their kids’ lunches or serve after school to tie them over till dinner.”
If you want to get more creative, Krebs notes some of her more elaborate granola concoctions feature maca, a Peruvian plant that has both amino and fatty acids, offering many health benefits, as well as pieces of health-loaded coconut.
The next time my son is famished after hockey, real granola, with seeds, oats and berries and not the molasses and cocoa butter, will be the healthy treat I’m sure he’ll happily eat.
