A High Fiber Cracker - FINALLY!

 It's pretty hard to find a good tasting high-fiber cracker. You would think "wheat" or "stone-ground wheat" crackers would naturally be good sources of fiber - but, like most packaged and processed foods, they're made from enriched and refined white flour, and often have at most 1 gram of fiber per serving. Here's what's traditionally been wrong with some of the cracker offerings out there:

• Nabisco's Wheatsworth crackers (of "stone ground wheat" fame) have 1 gram of fiber and lots of white flour
• Kashi TLC Crackers have less than 1 gram of fiber and low-fiber unbleached wheat flour as their first ingredient - disappointing from a brand that usually puts out some impressive high-fiber foods
• Kellogg's All Bran crackers have five grams of fiber - but they also all have a weird cinnamon taste to all of the flavors, probably needed to mask the taste of added isolated fiber ingredients needed to get to 5 grams of fiber per serving
• Wasa's Whole Grain crackers are pretty good, light in calories for 2 grams of naturally-occurring fiber; but your friends make fun of you when you serve kind-of-cardboard crackers at cocktail parties

So up until now, you really didn't much in the way of good whole-grain cracker choices. Enter Nabisco's Wheat Thins Fiber Selects 5-Grain crackers. Wheat Thins - the ubiquitous high salt, high fat refined grain snack cracker, has actually made what seems to be a turn for the better. In 13 crackers (30 g), the Fiber Selects give you 5 grams of fiber, 120 calories - which isn't bad, considering the alternatives. The fat is a little high at 4.5 grams per serving, but only 0.5 grams of that are of the unhealthy saturated fat type and there is no trans fat.

They actually taste good too. Naturally, they're salty (260 mg per day which puts you over 10% of your daily value for sodium) - but they're nutty and crunchy and a lot more tasty than your standard Wheat Thin. The fiber in Wheat Thins Fiber Selects comes from:

• Whole grain wheat flour (the first ingredient - a good sign)
• Oat fiber
• Golden flax seed
• Whole grain barley flakes
• Cracked whole wheat, and 
• Whole grain rolled oats

There is some high fructose corn syrup in there contributing to the 4 grams of added sugars - but all in all - considering the competition, Wheat Thins Fiber Selects are a welcome addition to the cracker aisle.

Wheaties Fuel: Is More Fiber in Your Cereal Worth that Much More Sugar?

Wheaties Fuel is a newly formulated breakfast cereal recipe from Wheaties, "co-created with a team of today's elite champions including Peyton Manning, Albert Pujols, Kevin Garnett...designed for the active individual." While the attempt at reformulating an old classic is noble - it's probably unnecessary.

From a nutritional standpoint, there are more than two times as many calories in the new version and double the carbohydrate in an identical 3/4 cup serving size. The fiber has been bumped up from 3 grams in the original to 5 grams per serving in the Fuel version - but while the original Wheaties recipe has "Whole Grain Wheat" as its primary - and only - source of fiber, Wheaties Fuel's extra fiber comes from whole grain wheat and oats but with a good deal of added (fake?), isolated fiber, including:

• Corn bran
• Maltodextrin
• Wheat bran

In addition to the inclusion of isolated fiber - whose health benefits are relatively unknown - another downside to this reformulated recipe is the need to increase sugars from 4 grams per serving in the original recipe to 14 grams of sugar in the Fuel in order to make all of that fiber palatable. This makes a formerly simple, whole grain, low sugar cereal that any dietitian would recommend into a high calorie, high sugar option that isn't as nutritionally attractive. 

The increase in sugar in the new recipe translates to approximately 45 extra calories from sugar alone in the Fuel version...meaning HALF of the "added carbohydrate" (intended to benefit athletes) in the new recipe is just from refined sugars. 

While it is true that athletes should have a greater percentage of their calories derived from carbohydrate when compared to the non-athletic population, nutrition professionals recommend that those calories come from complex carbohydrates - foods like whole grains, fruits, vegetables and dried peas and beans. Unfortunately, half of the the Wheaties Fuel's extra carbohydrates come from simple sugars like table sugar, brown sugar syrup and corn syrup solids. 

An athlete looking to incorporate a healthful breakfast cereal into his or her meal plan would be better served to have a bowl of the Original Wheaties with skim or 1% milk and a medium-sized banana. The banana added with the Original Wheaties gives you the equivalent amount of calories and carbohydrate as the Fuel brand - but without the added refined sugar and even more fiber.

If you want to learn more about Wheaties Fuel - the manufacturers have posted a number of entertaining webisodes on YouTube featuring some of the athletes "involved" in the creation of Wheaties Fuel.