Nature Valley Sweet & Salty Nut Granola Bar "Almond" Review

I was doing a bit of shopping yesterday afternoon, and worked up quite an appetite. So when I passed by a vending machine I got super excited and bought the first thing that looked halfway tasty and filling. That happened to be a Nature Valley Sweet & Salty Nut Granola Bar.

Even though they aren't the healthiest things in the world I love the granola bars by Nature Valley, and since I'd never tried their Sweet & Salty bars before I decided to give the almond flavored bar a try, it cost $1.

One almond flavored bar contains almonds, high maltose corn syrup, rolled oats, sugar, high fructose corn syrup, crisp rice, palm kernel oil, wheat flakes, fructose, canola oil, water, yogurt powder, maltodextrin, salt, nonfat milk, soy lecithin, color added, & honey.

One serving contains 160 calories and 60 fat calories. It also contains 7g of fat, 2g of sat. fat, 0g of trans fat, 0mg of cholesterol and 170mg of sodium. There are 22g of total carbohydrates in the Nature Valley Sweet & Salty Nut Almond Granola Bar, and 2g of fiber, 12g of sugar, and 3g of protein.

Usually Nature Valley Granola Bars come in a dark green foil packages but the Sweet & Salty Nut Granola Bars come in an orange and burgundy package. Their regular bars have a dry and hard texture but the Sweet & Salty Nut Bar is lighter and chewier.

I really liked the taste of it. It's really sweet and tastes like honey and oats, but it is full of almonds and it prevents this granola from tasting sickly sweet. It adds a much needed earthy and salty flavor that balances out the rest of the flavors.

The only thing I didn't care for was the so-called almond butter coating that was added to the bottom of the bar. As soon as I tasted it I knew that it was made from some sort of yogurt concoction because it reminded me of some yogurt coated raisins I had years ago.

Even though the almond butter coating added some moisture to the Sweet & Salty Granola, I thought it was unnecessary because it didn't taste good. It had an artificial powdery taste and it was overly sweet. The granola itself had good flavors, so for me, the coating brought the whole thing down.

In the End...

Even though it's not particularly healthy or full of high quality ingredients, if I happened to see the Nature Valley Sweet & Salty Nut Almond Flavored Granola Bar again and I had a taste for something sweet & salty, I'd definitely buy it again. I'd just scrape that awful coating off the bottom before I ate it. I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars.