There’s a quiet revolution happening in the snack aisle. Shoppers who once filled their carts with products stamped “low fat,” “high protein,” or “all natural” are now putting those very same items back on the shelf. The packaging hasn’t changed. The marketing certainly hasn’t. But consumers have. They’re reading ingredient labels with laser focus, digging past the front-of-pack promises and asking harder questions about what they’re actually eating.
Nearly three quarters of US shoppers are actively trying to cut ultra-processed foods out of their diets. That’s a seismic shift. And it means that many snacks once considered the gold standard of “eating well” are now being looked at with serious skepticism. So which ones made the list? Let’s dive in.
1. Flavored Granola Bars
For decades, granola bars were the universal shorthand for “healthy snack.” Toss one in your bag, feel virtuous. Simple. Except it wasn’t that simple at all. A common theme among big-name companies is that they use sneaky words to trick consumers into thinking their products are healthy when they’re far from it. That’s a bold truth that more shoppers are finally waking up to.
Added sugar content in many bars comes largely from corn syrup, the second listed ingredient on some products, which is a sweetener totally devoid of any nutrition and just provides empty calories. On top of that, safety scares didn’t help the category’s reputation. In December 2024, over 2.4 million cases of MadeGood granola bars were recalled because they may contain pieces of metal, described as a “small, flat brush bristle.”
Consumers are increasingly expecting more from the products they buy, especially around using high quality, simple ingredients. Shoppers are scrutinizing labels more closely than ever, and products containing unfamiliar or overly processed ingredients are increasingly being passed over. Granola bars, for many, no longer pass that test.
2. Flavored Yogurts
Yogurt has long held a near-saintly reputation as a health food. The probiotic angle, the calcium, the creamy convenience. But flavored yogurts, the ones that dominate supermarket shelves in eye-catching colors? That’s where the story gets complicated. Nutritionists flagged flavored yogurts for the ditch list, warning that a serving may contain the equivalent of five to six added teaspoons of sugar.
Honestly, that’s about as much sugar as you’d expect from a small candy bar. Though the American Heart Association recommends consuming less than 25 grams of added sugars a day, the average American consumes 71 grams a day, and flavored yogurts are a sneaky contributor to that number. Shoppers who’ve made this connection are increasingly switching to plain yogurt with fresh fruit instead.
Different from regular flavored yogurt, Skyr-style yogurt contains more protein and less sugar while retaining all of the probiotic-rich benefits, making it the smarter swap many informed shoppers are gravitating toward in 2025 and 2026.
3. Protein Bars
Here’s the thing about protein bars. They sound like the ideal snack. Protein. Energy. Convenience. The gym crowd swears by them. The marketing is relentless. Protein bars might not immediately come to mind when you think of unhealthy foods, but some aren’t as beneficial as they seem. Many bars sold today contain large amounts of ultra-processed ingredients, artificial sweeteners, and added sugars.
All four nutritionists in a Newsweek panel agreed that ultra-processed protein bars and shakes should be left behind. The conversation is going mainstream fast. Protein bars promise convenience and nutrition, but most are ultra-processed and high in sugar, according to research from Tufts University published in early 2026.
Industry insiders note that transparency and minimal ingredients are shaping purchasing behavior, with shoppers actively seeking out snacks that align with specific health goals, including reducing added sugar and avoiding synthetic additives. For many consumers, that moment of truth happens right in the store aisle, label in hand.
4. Veggie Chips and Veggie Straws
Few snacks have pulled off a more convincing disguise than veggie chips. The name alone does a lot of work. “Veggie” is right there in the title, practically wearing a lab coat. The packaging is often green, festooned with images of peppers and spinach leaves. It feels healthy. It really, really doesn’t have to be. Sales declines in certain chip categories have been affected by growing concerns over ultra-processed foods and artificial dyes.
Most veggie chips are primarily made from potato starch or corn flour, with vegetable powder added in trace amounts, far too small to offer any meaningful nutritional benefit from actual vegetables. The top attribute consumers look for in a healthy snack is no additives or preservatives, followed by no artificial ingredients, and veggie chips often fall short on both fronts when you look carefully at the label.
Consumers are seeking snacks that satisfy cravings and offer benefits like natural ingredients, protein, and fiber. Veggie chips rarely deliver on any of those. Savvier shoppers have moved on to snacks with real vegetable content or have replaced them with genuinely fiber-rich alternatives.
5. Rice Cakes
Rice cakes had their big moment in the low-fat diet era and somehow never fully left the store shelf. They became a symbol of restraint. Eat a rice cake, feel disciplined. I know it sounds a little extreme, but for a long time, this was genuinely considered a gold-standard “healthy” snack choice. Rice cakes have actually seen a 24.6% sales increase in some data windows, suggesting they still have their fans. Still, a growing group of shoppers have moved away from them.
The core criticism is that plain rice cakes offer very little in the way of protein, fiber, or meaningful nutrition. They are essentially a vehicle for air. Flavored versions often come loaded with sodium, sugar coatings, or artificial flavoring agents, which brings them closer to a candy-adjacent snack than the health staple they’re marketed as.
While naturalness remains a key element of the perception of a snack as healthy, consumers are also seeking snacks with more of the good, like protein and fiber, and less of the bad, like sugar. Rice cakes, for most variants, deliver on none of those fronts, and informed shoppers are noticing.
6. Fruit Juice Pouches and Bottles
Fruit juice has one of the most impressive PR reputations in the entire food industry. It sounds like health in liquid form. Vitamins! Fruit! Natural! Healthy snacks are increasingly linked to naturalness, protein, fiber, and less sugar, and juice, even 100 percent fruit juice, is conspicuously low on that list except for the natural claim. The fiber is largely gone after processing. What remains is a concentrated hit of sugar.
The comparison to soda is one that nutrition researchers have been making for years. A glass of apple juice and a glass of cola can have a surprisingly similar sugar content. The American Heart Association recommends consuming less than 25 grams of added sugars a day, yet the average American consumes about 71 grams a day, with beverages being a major driver of that number.
Among the many strategies consumers are adopting, they say they aren’t snacking as often and are being more selective in what they buy. Fruit juice, once considered a default healthy choice, is increasingly being swapped for whole fruit or water as shoppers grow more ingredient-aware.
7. Low-Fat Snack Crackers
Low-fat labeling was the holy grail of the 1990s and early 2000s snack industry. If something was low in fat, it was automatically considered healthy. Supermarkets capitalized on this for decades, and products like low-fat crackers became pantry staples for millions of households looking to watch their weight. The latest Dietary Guidelines for Americans prioritized whole foods like fruits, vegetables, and protein over their highly-processed counterparts, which represents a significant shift away from the old low-fat mentality.
The problem with most low-fat crackers is that removing fat often means adding sugar and sodium to compensate for lost flavor. The end product can be more glycemically disruptive than its full-fat equivalent. Shoppers are scrutinizing labels more closely than ever, and products containing unfamiliar or overly processed ingredients are increasingly being passed over in favor of brands that prioritize clean, recognizable components.
Today’s more nutrition-literate shopper knows that fat is not the enemy it was once made out to be. Trends are pointing toward lower sugar becoming mainstream, with more brands incorporating functional ingredients to stand out in a competitive landscape. Low-fat crackers loaded with refined starches and salt simply don’t fit that emerging picture.
8. Store-Bought Smoothies and Green Juices
There is something deeply convincing about a bottle of cold-pressed green juice. It looks like something a wellness influencer would carry. The color alone practically screams “detox.” Yet the reality, once you flip the bottle around and read the nutrition label, can be quite startling. Many store-bought smoothies and green juices are packed with enough fruit sugars to rival a dessert.
Consumers on health-focused diets need to ensure that what they eat and drink delivers the protein, fiber, and nutrients they need in more concentrated formats, and most bottled green juices fail significantly on the protein and fiber front. Juice-based products frequently remove the fiber-rich pulp during processing, leaving behind concentrated sugar water with a health halo.
EY survey data found that consumption of snack foods among health-conscious shoppers dropped between 40 and 60 percent while their consumption of specialty health foods increased by roughly half. That shift is clearly steering consumers away from bottled smoothies toward simpler, whole-food alternatives that actually deliver what they promise.
9. Multigrain Snack Foods
Multigrain sounds like a nutritional win. More grains must mean more fiber, more nutrients, more everything good, right? Not necessarily. The word “multigrain” simply means a product contains more than one type of grain. It says nothing about whether those grains are whole or refined, nutrient-rich or stripped of their goodness during processing. There is no agreed-upon definition that clearly defines the processing levels of these foods, which are largely considered to contain additives and preservatives.
The top attribute consumers look for in a healthy snack is no additives or preservatives, followed by no artificial ingredients. Many multigrain products, from crackers to chips to pretzels, contain refined grain flours as their primary ingredient with a sprinkle of oats or barley to justify the “multi” claim on the package. Traditional categories like potato chips and tortilla chips saw slight contraction, signaling that legacy categories may benefit from genuinely innovative positioning and better-for-you value propositions.
Shoppers are increasingly calling out this labeling as misleading. The push toward cleaner ingredient panels means that snacks which rely purely on “multigrain” marketing without delivering real nutritional substance are losing their place in the cart. It’s a slow reckoning, but a real one.
10. Plant-Based Meat Snack Alternatives
The plant-based food boom was one of the defining food stories of the early 2020s. Everyone was excited. The environmental logic was compelling, the mainstream appeal was growing, and the health claims were front and center. Fast forward to 2025 and 2026, and the picture is more complicated. Some nutritionists suggest ditching fake meat alternatives, noting they can be “heavily refined and packed with additives” and “made using inflammatory ingredients and preservatives.”
The irony is striking. Products designed to be a healthier, more ethical alternative to conventional meat snacks often contain longer ingredient lists than their animal-based counterparts. Steep drops in purchases of calorie-dense, processed food items accounted for much of the shift in spending patterns among more health-aware consumers. Plant-based jerky and snack sticks, once flying off shelves, have seen shoppers reconsider.
Consumers are reaching for a wide range of healthy snacks, including bars, dairy snacks, nuts and seeds, and meat snacks, while traditional snack foods continue to get healthier. Interestingly, real meat snacks made from minimally processed ingredients, like grass-fed beef sticks, are actually gaining ground while the ultra-processed plant-based alternatives lose traction. The “plant-based” label, it turns out, is no guarantee of health.
