You might be wondering: If granola is supposed to be so good for you, then why does it have so much sugar?
To put it simply: Food companies (both big and small ones) add sugars and sweeteners to foods because they don't think you'll buy them otherwise. This is disheartening, especially when 75% of adults are trying to limit or avoid sugars altogether in their diets. The reasons so many people are trying to cut out sugar range from better management of blood sugars to losing weight, improving dental health, and reducing chronic inflammation.
But anyone who has tried to reduce their sugar intake knows it's not so easy. Our taste buds have been trained to recognize sweetness as an enjoyable and safe trait in foods. The trouble is: The more sugar we eat, the more sugar we want. So food makers just keep adding them, which is why 3 out of every 4 products you can buy contain sugar or alternative sweeteners - or both.
Sadly, our demand for ever sweeter foods, coupled with food manufacturers increasingly providing them to us, has resulted in a nearly 30% increase in added sugar consumption by American adults in the last three decades.
One response to this has been a flood of food producers employing artificial and natural low-calorie sweeteners, such as sucralose, aspartame, sugar alcohols like erythritol, and even more natural options like stevia and monk fruit. While these products do result in a sweet-tasting product that contains fewer calories and grams of sugar, the health risks of regularly consuming low-calorie sweeteners is alarming and also has not proven to equate to a weight-loss benefit or a blood sugar benefit (in fact, the opposite is proving to be true). Additionally, many people balk at the taste (or aftertaste) of these intensely sweet alternatives.
So Where Are The Better Choices?
When it comes to granola, you'll find those that are marketed as "better for you," but still contain plenty of added sugars in nearly every form, as you can see in this sugar comparison chart. And you'll also find many granolas that have gone the route of using zero-calorie alternative sweeteners, assuming that you won't eat granola unless it has a sweet coating.
None, however, have gone the route of containing NO added sugars or sweeteners of any kind - until now. Struesli finally gives you that option.
One of the reasons Struesli still tastes so good and even has a little bit of natural sweetness to it is because of the thinly sliced tiger nuts. These fiber-rich root vegetables look a lot like chickpeas and taste a little like almonds. They have a subtle and pleasant natural sweetness to them, which makes Struesli so delicious to eat without containing any of the added sugars and sweeteners that so many people are trying to avoid. The numbers don't lie: When it comes to your health, Struesli can't be beat!
Written by Jessie Shafer, RD
Updated December 27, 2023
