I have found that one of the hardest parts of trying to make healthier choices, when it comes to what you eat, is the in between meals stage: snacks. To make it easier for you, each week I will bring you a new healthy option for snacking.
One of the capstone projects I completed in my undergrad was designing a food product. My group choose to create a veggie fruit leather. I would say ours was the most challenging project, but we nailed it! We created a spicy (think jalapeno) veggie leather that had a full serving of vegetables in each strip.
I’m drawn to fruit leathers because they are a quick snack I can throw in my book bag without worrying if it’s going to get crushed, or needs refrigerating. We often take a couple on hikes, as a snack on airplane rides, or I’ll bring a box to the track and they will be gone before I know it. I decided to round up a variety of fruit leathers from places I shop and review them.
To note: This post is not sponsored by a third party company, and is not an exshaustive list of all the fruit leathers out there, I just found the ones that were available at Trader Joes, Target, and my local supermarket Stater Brothers. I was conscious of choosing fruit leathers that were 100% real fruit, with no added compounds such as high fructose corn syrup, dyes, or artifical flavorings.
1. SunRype 100% Fruit Strip: This fruit leather only contains fruit concentrates, pectin (a natural thickener), and some natural flavorings. It claims to be gluten free, but all of these fruit leathers are gluten free. As far as taste, this raspberry flavor was delicious. I’m not a fan of the lower Vitamin C content though.This brand also has fruit leathers that have veggies, along with fruit in the ingredients.
50 calories / 11g sugar / 2% Vitamin C
2. Stretch Island Fruit Co All Natural Fruit Strip: These contain fruit concentrate, lemon juice, and natural apple flavor. They also claim to contain 1/2 serving of fruit in each strip. Unlike #1, they don’t contain pectin, but they aren’t as tasty. I found them to be more on the dry side as flavor goes.
45 calories / 9g sugar / 10% Vitamin C
3. Simply Balanced Fruit Strips: The ingredients in these leathers include fruit concentrate, pectin, ascorbic acid (essential Vitamin C), and the last ingredient is vegetable and fruit juice (carrot, blueberry) for color. I love that they didn’t feel the need to use chemical dyes for the color. I enjoy the taste of these, they are the perfect balance between not too sticky and not too dry.
45 calories / 9g sugar / 10% Vitamin C
4. Jovy Fruit Roll: These are placed in the produce isle, so without second guessing it I picked a couple up for my trial run. It wasn’t until I sat down to analyze these fruit leathers that I read the ingredients and noted that theese fruit leathers contain artifical coloring. I don’t see why they feel the need to add dyes into their product, because it has similar color to the other fruit leathers. Other ingredients include fruit concentrate, pectin, ascorbic acid, natural and artificial flavorings. So no, these are not all natural like the others on this list. Also, these come in a thin sheet that you peel off of a plastic backing. And, these also contain the most sugar, Vitamin C, and calories-2 out of 3 would qualify a thumbs down from me.
72 calories / 15g sugar / 25% Vitamin C
5. Trader Joes Organic Fruit Wrap: Unlike the other fruit leathers, these are certified organic. To me, that’s not a decision maker, but thats a post for another day. These contain fruit concentrates, pectin, lemon juice and natural flavor. These have a similar texture and consistancy to the Target brand leathers, but come with a little more sugar and in a smaller size.
50 calories / 12g sugar / 2% Vitamin C
And my personal winner is the Target brand Simply balanced fruit strips. I’ve been buying these for awhile. Mostly because they are almost always on sale (2-12 packs for $5!). They have a couple different flavors, and just recently introduced fruit and vegetable blend leathers. I wanted to branch out and try some other all natural fruit leathers to see if I was missing something. Although, the sun rype leathers gave the simply balanced leathers a run for their money, I will stick to the Target brand simply because of the lower sugar content, higher vitamin C content, and the lower price helps. Although, I should note that the sugars in these leathers come from the fruits and are not added sugars!
Do you like fruit leathers? Which ones are you favorites?
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