General Mills - Fiber One Oats and Peanut Butter Chewy Bars Review

I have a sweet tooth, there is no doubt about that, I am also addicted to chocolate in the worst way, and since I was recently diagnosed with diabetes this is a real problem.  The diebetes is minor at this time and the doctor says that if I just lose 10 pounds I will probably be able to be off meds, and just control the diabetes with diet and exercise.  The fact is with my horrible sweet tooth losing weight is very difficult to for me.  When I discussed my sweet tooth with the nutritionist she said I did not have to give up sweets entirely, but that I did need to be more smart about what I consume.  She also told me the more fiber I eat the more carbs I can eat.  For instance most breakfast cereals are not all that great for diabetics, but if eat high fiber cereals it makes eating cereal much better. She put me on a carbohydrate point system, where carbohydrate grams are worth a certain amount of points and after I have consumed 17 carbohydrate points I have consumed my maximum amount for the day. The good thing though is that if I eat a food that has more than 5 grams of fiber I can subtract 1 carbohydrate point.  So while a normal bowl of cereal with milk would be 3 carbohydrate points, 2 for the cereal and one for the milk, if I eat a cereal that contains 5 grams or more of fiber then it only counts for 2 carbohydrate points.

So of course my sweet tooth and I went shopping for some tasty high fiber snacks.  I found the perfect solution with the Fiber One Chewy Bars.  My favorite ones are the Oats & Peanut Butter flavor. 

The Fiber One Chewy bars are kind of like soft granola bars, they are about the same size and shape as your typical soft granola bar. Also like granola bars these bars come individually packaged, each box of Fiber One Chewy Bars comes with 5 bars.

The Fiber One Chewy bars are high in fiber, a good source of calcium, and have 0 grams of trans fat. They do have 4.5 grams of fat and 150 calories, they are not exactly low fat but they are less than 30% fat, which is the highest recommended amount of fat that you should eat in a serving of something, but if you are simply suppossed to keep track of your carbohydrates and fiber counts these are perfect for you.  If you are looking at your diet in terms of fat grams these would probably be OK, but not perfect.  These bars contain 35 % of your daily value of fiber.  These bars have 28 grams of carbohydrates, which would cost me 3 carbohydrate points, but because there are 9 grams of fiber I get to delete 1 carbohydrate point, meaning one of these delicious bars will cost me only 2 carbohydarate points.  These bars also contain 3 grams of protein, and have only 9 grams of sugar, this is about the same as a regular chewy granola bar, but the difference is a regular chewey granola bar only has 1 gram of fiber.

The list of ingredients is quite large so I will not duplicate it in full here, but obviously those with peanut allergies will need to steer clear of these. There are peanuts, and oats, and some milk products, there are both natural flavors and artificial flavors.  They use real peanuts but there also use peanut butter chips that add a lot of flavor and this is probably what makes these bars taste so good, but these chips also have some sugar in them. These also contain, Soy, Sunflower, wheat and almond ingredients.

As for flavor these taste really good, they tast like sweet peanut butter, and peanuts, and the taste for lack of a better description a bit nugat like.  There is a little bit of a sweet and salty thing going on in these that is wonderful.  They are soft, and they are also a bit chewy so they linger in your mouth a little longer and give you a longer amount of time to let the flavor satisfy you. The biggest problem with the taste though is that one bar never seems like enough. It is really hard not to reach for a second one.  These bars are so good  They help curve my chocolate and sweet cravings, and trick my mouth into thinking I am eating a candy bar.

So if you like me crave those sweets and carbohydrates and are looking for something really sweet and tasty but with a lot of fiber you may want to try Fiber One Chewy Bars.  These bars taste so good that my kids go crazy for them.  If I don't hide them, I sometimes go into the pantry and find the box empty or when ever I buy these and the kids see these they want to eat them right away.  These cost about $3.99 per box, and since they are a healthy snack that my kids really like as well I always have to buy a couple of boxes.  This is a lot of money for snack foods, but the flavor and fiber are worth it.