Trader Joe's "This Cranberry Flavored With Other Natural Flavors Walks Into A Bar..."

I'm torn about this product.

I liked the bars. In fact, my initial reaction was that they tasted even better than the non-seasonal varieties--blueberry and strawberry.

However.

It was also instantly obvious that this is not what cranberries taste like--way too sweet for that. A quick look at the list of ingredients explains it. The first three components of the filling are "brown rice syrup, sugar, cane syrup." Put a bit more bluntly, that would be "sugar, sugar, and more sugar." There is absolutely no trace of what should be the natural cranberry tartness.

In case that's not enough sugar for you, move on to the ingredients in the shell, and you'll find that the list begins with "organic wheat flour, dried cane syrup, invert cane syrup." In other words, "flour, sugar, and more sugar."

The list of ingredients in the filling also helps explain that mysterious clause not found in the titles of the other similar products: "flavored with other natural flavors." After the three forms of sugar, we find apple powder, glycerin, modified food starch, water--then, finally, cranberry juice concentrate, pectin, "natural flavor," citric acid.

Each bar has 140 calories, 25 of which are from fat, 8 from protein, 52 from sugar, and 52 from other carbohydrates. (I realize that means 3 calories are missing. I assume this is from rounding errors in the nutrition information.)

So basically Trader Joe's managed to appeal to my nearly insatiable sweet tooth. I guess you can consider that a success of sorts. They do taste good. But there are no cranberries here, and precious little of anything that ever came from a cranberry. And tons of sugar.

That's not what I want from a breakfast/snack bar.


Will I buy it again? 

No.