Cracker Quirks

When you’re in the grocery store deciding what crackers to buy, there’s a few more little quirks to watch out for. Stuff that sounds like it would make crackers good health food is once again not all it’s cracked up to be.

One important quirk to look for is the kind of fat in crackers. It’s hard to make crackers without some sort of fat, and of course you want to avoid trans fat. But even if the label says there is zero trans fat, you’re not home free. Sometimes the cracker is loaded with saturated fat.

You want to avoid both trans fat and saturated fat as much as possible. The trick is to look for crackers with no more than 1 gram of saturated fat, and no partially hydrogenated oils, or trans fats.

Then let’s consider those crackers with vegetables in them. Wow, crackers with vegetables added! That should be a great combination for a health food, right?

Well, think about this — Nabisco Vegetable Thins, Roasted Vegetable Ritz, and even Kashi TLC Fire Roasted Vegetable crackers all have more oil than they have dehydrated vegetables. Considering they don’t have that much oil, the amount of vegetables in those crackers is pretty tiny.

Bottom line here, watch out for the kinds of fats used to make crackers. And don’t be fooled by labels shouting about great ingredients like vegetables.

Forget the quirky crackers and look for crackers with 100% whole grain goodness.