I have a confession to make: I am truly embarrassed for nutrition bar manufacturers that sell — and consumers who buy — candy bars dressed up to look like nutrition bars. Let me explain. I get the fact that chocolate is delicious (I ate an entire Ghirardelli Milk Chocolate bar just the other night, and like a lot of people, I too have chocolate-related cravings). But I also know that in order to keep chocolate solid at room temperature, you must hydrogenate it, and that hydrogenated oils clog your arteries, which ultimately aids in the advancement of heart disease.

The single biggest farce in the nutrition bar industry is coating bars with chocolate. Seriously, does anyone still believe this is healthy?

Apparently, some of you do, because every day I see more un-scrupulous companies successfully selling chocolate-coated “nutrition” bars. With that simple thought in mind, allow me to tell you about three “nutrition bar” ingredients everyone needs to avoid:

1. Hydrogenated oils
2. Sugar alcohols
3. Artificial sweeteners

Don’t believe me (think I’m just making this up to make PureFit Bars look better)? Take a look at the list of ingredients in your average nutrition bar. Many are loaded with the same ingredients you know you need to avoid in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle, including: Sugar; Partially hydrogenated oils; Artificial sweeteners; and, Sugar alcohols (often in the form of maltitol syrup).

For the uninitiated, maltitol syrup is a sweetener that can produce gas, bloating and a laxative so overpowering that many countries now actually require a warning label on foods containing the item. Other commonly used sugar alcohols you may want to avoid include: malitol syrup (notice the different spelling), glycol, isomalt, lactitol, glycerol, glycerine, erythritol, arabitol, xylitol, ribitol, mannitol, and sorbitol.

The sad truth about the nutrition bar industry is this: For the most part, we’re unregulated, which means many of PureFit’s competitors use ingredients that are inexpensive, unhealthy, and often contribute to all kinds of negative health issues.

Do yourself a favor: Quit eating candy bars disguised as nutrition bars. Just because something has a little protein powder, that in-and-of-itself doesn’t mean it’s healthy or good for you.

My list of bars that contain ingredients I strongly suggest you avoid is long and offending and I’m not going to post it here. Just know this…  if a “nutrition bar” looks like a candy bar and taste like a candy bar, it is a candy bar.