The 100-Calorie Snack Storm

(HealthCastle.com) Treats packaged as 100-calorie snack packs are food manufacturers' way of responding to the obesity epidemic and consumer demand. Cracker and cookie giants such as Oreo, Chips Ahoy, and Ritz are re-packaging their flagship products into smaller portions available in 100-calorie portion packs. And other popular packaged snacks such as Pringles, Lays chips, Cheetos, Balance energy bars, Cadbury, and even Coke are jumping on the 100-calorie bandwagon too.

100-Calorie Snack Packs - Yay or Nay?

• Nay: Although food manufacturers are definitely doing better by shrinking portion sizes instead of super-sizing them, repackaging these snacks into 100-calorie packs does not make them more nutritious or healthier. These crackers, cookies and chips are the perfect examples of empty-calorie snacks. Empty-calorie foods are high in calories but low in nutritional value, lacking the health-promoting nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and fiber.
  
  Plus, despite the fact that these 100-calorie snack packs show 0 grams of trans fat on the Nutrition Facts panels, we found trans fat laden hydrogenated oil on their ingredient list. It is unfortunate that the FDA allows food manufacturers to list 0 grams of trans fat as long as there is less than 0.5 gram of trans fat per serving.
  
  
• Yay: If you absolutely cannot resist empty-calorie snacks, and you don't mind paying a hefty price (twice as expensive per ounce), 100-calorie snack packs may work for you. Instead of eating a whole bag of fried chips, having one portion-controlled 100-calorie pack is helpful in curbing overeating. Please note that some 100-calorie packs actually have a different formulation than their original. Oreo is an example. One original Oreo cookie alone has 75 calories. It doesn't make sense to put 1 1/2 Oreo cookies in a 100-calorie pack! So Kraft had to resize and reformulate the cookies by removing the cream layer.