Okay, so I’ve been talking about all these crackers you DON”T want to eat, how about some that are healthier?

Following is a list of brands/types of crackers that have at least 3-grams of fiber per 30-gram (1 ounce) serving, and many are 100% whole grain. There are NO saturated or trans fats in any of these, and they have 200mg of sodium, or less, per serving.

The following crackers are pretty good even thought they have 1 gram of fat.  They also have 3 grams of fiber and 220mg of sodium or less:

• Kraft South Beach Diet, Woven Wheat (1 pack of crackers/100 calories)
• Nabisco Triscuit – except Cheddar, Reduced Fat or Thin Crisps (6/120 calories
• Nabisco Triscuit – Reduced Fat (7 crackers, 120 calories)
• Nabisco Triscuit – Thin Crisps (15 crackers, 130 calories)
• Nabisco Triscuit – Cheddar (6 crackers, 120 calories)

I’m sure there are other crackers out there worth eating.  Just check the labels and find those with 3 grams or more of fiber per serving, and as little saturated and trans fats as possible.

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Crackers Worth Eating

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.

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Cracker Quirks

While we’re looking for whole grains in crackers, it follows we ought to get fiber too.

Some crackers, like Kellogg’s All-Bran Multi-Grain Crackers, even make a big deal of the fiber by putting “5g FIBER” on the front of the box.

That sounds good compared to Finn Crisp Crackers, for example, because they only have 3 grams of fiber.

The only trouble is those pesky serving sizes. Once again it’s Kellogg’s with the larger serving size of 30-grams, while Finn Crisp is less than half that. When the serving sizes are equaled up, all of a sudden the Finn Crisp is the better deal for a fiber health food.

Finn Crisp has the edge in the type of fiber also. It’s whole rye, while the Kellogg’s All-Bran crackers get fiber from added oat fiber, an isolated fiber than isn’t considered as good as intact fiber from whole grains.

So if you’re looking for crackers with a lot of fiber, remember to do the math so you’re comparing like serving sizes first of all. Then make crackers with fibers with whole grains your first choice, since isolated fibers like oat, inulin and malto-dextrin may not be as good a health food.

To me, the easist thing would be to just look for 100% whole grain crackers, and the fiber would be there, too

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Crackers with Fiber