16 Store-Bought Organic Snacks That Aren't Very Healthy

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Buying organic gives you a certain level of confidence in your food, but there are a lot of store-bought organic snacks that really aren't all that good for you. When you buy a product that's certified USDA organic, there are a few guarantees that you can expect related to the quality of the ingredients. Plants must be grown with natural fertilizers and use pest control that's environmentally friendly. The ingredients shouldn't be genetically modified. It shouldn't have artificial colors or flavors. Plus, there should be no artificial preservatives. All of the promises of organic food helps consumers feel more confident about a lack of unwanted chemicals in their foods. However, USDA organic quality guarantees do not extend to how healthy a product is.

Even if you buy organic snacks, it's still a good idea to label read. It still may have lots of sugar, fat, or sodium; not have much fiber; or not have as much nutritional value as you might be looking for in an organic snack. Don't get us wrong. We've found plenty of organic snack foods that are impressively healthy for a snack food. However, the 16 organic snack foods on our list are ones that have shortcomings if you're seeking a healthy store-bought organic snack choice.

There's not much that can replace a chocolate chip cookie when you get a craving for one, but Annie's Organic Chocolate Chip Cookie Bites aren't necessarily the most healthy option. While they rank fifth in our list of best chocolate cookies, they're still a sweet treat.

At first glance, these cookies look promising. While they're made with whole grain oat flour to supplement the non-whole-grain wheat flour, you're only getting a single gram of fiber in a serving of six cookies. It's also made with palm oil, which is a fat that's half saturated. True, palm oil has less saturated fat than the butter you'd use to make these at home, but it's still not ideal. If you eat six of these cookies, you end up consuming 8 grams of fat, with 3 of those grams being saturated. If you want more than six cookies, those saturated fat grams will start to stack up. The vitamin content is also nearly nonexistent. So, there are certainly healthier cookie options out there.

When you're looking for healthier chip options, the amount of fat and salt matter. Since chips tend to be fried in oil and salted for flavor and as part of the preservative process, many organic potato chips are just as unhealthy as their non-organic counterparts. However, there are some brands that try to be more health-conscious than others. One of the more unhealthy brands we've come across is Azure Market Organics Sea Salt Potato Chips.

The ingredient list for these chips is simple: just potatoes, vegetable oil, and sea salt. However, the nutrition stats don't look as good as a serving of non-organic Lay's Classic Potato chips. In a single serving, Azure has 21 grams of total fat and 2 grams of saturated fat in comparison to Lay's 10 total grams of fat and 1.5 grams of saturated fat. The sodium content is higher, too, with Azure having 350 milligrams of sodium compared to Lay's 170 milligrams. Eating a single-serving bag of Azure chips has you already consuming 27% of your daily value of fat and 15% of your daily value (DV) of sodium.

Granola is one of those foods that looks like it should be good for you, but it most often isn't, even if it's organic. If you've ever tried making homemade granola, you'll realize you still have to use oil and a sticky sweetener like honey. Dried fruits in granola already contain sugar even if it's natural sugar. So, it's often the sugar content and sometimes the fat you have to watch. Ideally, you also want one with whole grains and healthy seeds to help increase the fiber and positive nutritional content. While Cascadian Farm Organic Oats and Honey Granola might contain organic ingredients, it's not the healthiest granola choice. It's also not on our list of best granola brands.

First of all, Cascadian Farm granola doesn't have any of the extra ingredients to boost its nutritional content. Pretty much, all you get here are oats, rice, sweeteners, oil, and salt without any healthy seeds or fruits to make the nutritional content significant, and the vitamin and mineral content is almost non-existent. Even with whole grain oats, it only provides 3 grams of dietary fiber. While the sugar and fat content aren't terrible here, it's still not an overly healthy snack.

When looking for healthy organic crackers, what you're looking for are ones that are low in sodium and higher in fiber. While there are some pros to Annie's Organic Cheddar Bunnies Baked Snack Crackers, there are also some cons as well.

Yes, they're organic and don't have a lot of preservatives and additives. You look at the ingredient list and mainly see items you recognize from what you use for baking in your own kitchen. However, the non-whole-grain wheat flour in these crackers provide less than a gram of dietary fiber for a serving of 51 crackers. It also has 11% of your DV of sodium, with 260 milligrams (slightly more than Goldfish brand crackers). These crackers don't provide anything in the way of healthy nutrients. So, you might feel better since it's an organic snack, but it ultimately provides nothing much in the way of nutritional value.

We ranked Black Forest Organic Gummy Bears as the fourth-best brand when it comes to gummy bear flavor and texture. However, they're not the best choice when you're trying to find healthy organic gummy candy.

These gummy bears certainly look like they must be healthy since they're made with organic lemon, fruit, and vegetable juice. However, that's not the whole story. These also contain cane sugar, which brings up the total amount of sugar in these gummy bears to 15 grams for just eight gummy bears. That's 30% of the DV for sugar in a normal 2,000-calorie diet. Assuming you sit down and eat more than eight gummies (which is certainly easy to do), it's not going to be long before you've maxed out your sugar allowance for the day. Plus, these candies don't claim to provide any vitamins and minerals. You can find better.

Yogurt can be a healthy snack, but just because it's organic doesn't mean all the other ingredients are good for you. Stonyfield Strawberry Organic Whole Milk Probiotic Yogurt is a good example of an organic yogurt that has some shortcomings. Some organic yogurts are even marketed as desserts, which can be a big red flag.

The biggest thing to look for is the sugar content in organic yogurt. In Stonyfield's strawberry yogurt, you'll find strawberry juice concentrate rather than whole strawberries, along with cane sugar. Together, the sweeteners take the sugar content up to 16 grams, which is more than a lot of sweet cereals like Kellogg's Frosted Flakes even have. The fact that it's made with whole milk is also something to consider. Being made with whole milk means that a ¾-cup serving has 6 grams of fat, and 4 of those grams are saturated, which is 20% of the DV of fat.

Rice cakes are often held out as a healthy alternative to some other snacks out there, but the reality is that they aren't all that nutritious despite their low calorie content. We took a look at Lundberg Organic Salted Caramel Rice Cakes and found that they didn't really fare any better than others.

If you're looking for something crunchy, slightly sweet, and low in calories, Lundberg's rice cakes fit the bill pretty well. They only have 4 grams of total sugars, 90 calories, and less than a gram of fat. They're even made with a whole grain: brown rice. However, they're not really providing much in terms of positive nutritional value. You get a single gram of protein and another gram of fiber, and that's it. The CDC explains that both fiber and protein help keep your blood sugar in check when eating carby foods. So, you could still enjoy your rice cake if you had it alongside something with protein and fiber.

When you're looking for healthy organic snacks, you'll probably want to steer clear of ones that contain powdered vegetables, like Good Health Kids Organic Veggie Straws. The fact that they have the word "veggies" in their name gives you a false sense of how nutritionally significant they are. While you're expecting vitamins, minerals, and fiber, you're usually just getting sodium and sometimes even sugar in products like veggie straws.

While Good Health Organic Veggie Straws doesn't have a significant amount of sugar in it, has no saturated fat, and has only 35 calories per serving, it's not all that healthy otherwise. For one thing, there's absolutely no fiber in it since it gets its structure from non-whole-grain items like potato flakes, potato starch, rice flour, and various powdered veggies. And while there's a little calcium and potassium in it, both only provide 2% of the DV, which makes them barely worth mentioning.

Snacking on fruit juice might seem like a healthy thing to do. However, you really have to watch how much sugar is in the juice. Just because some of the sugar comes from fruit doesn't make it better for you, especially since you're not getting the fiber from eating pulp and fruit skins like you would be if you were eating plain fruit. That organic label might mean that the fruit doesn't contain unwanted chemicals, but store-bought lemonade brands like Santa Cruz Organic Tart Cherry Lemonade are still full of lots of sugar.

Some organic fruit juices do have nutritious vitamins and minerals that make them at least somewhat healthy, but Santa Cruz Organic Tart Cherry Lemonade lacks any significant vitamins and minerals. Plus, it doesn't have any fiber. Basically, all you're left with is a bunch of carbohydrates that come largely from 23 grams of sugars, which is a whopping 42% of your DV for sugar.

When you see the organic label on peanut butter cups, it certainly creates a hope that you're in the presence of healthy peanut butter cups. It's true that the ingredients are cleaner ones, but peanut butter cups are still peanut butter cups, which is why Justin's Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups aren't all that healthy, even though they're certified USDA organic.

The main issues here are that the fat and sugar content are high. Ingredients like full cream milk, peanut butter, and palm oil bring the total fat content up to 15 grams, 8 of which are saturated, representing 40% of the DV of fat. While it's a good Reese's knockoff, there's actually half as much saturated fat in a serving of Reese's. And even though there's less sugar in Justin's version, it still has 16 grams of sugar, which is 32% of the DV.

We know you want cookie dough ice cream to be super healthy because it's organic, but we're going to have to burst your bubble and say it's going to be fairly unlikely to find. Ice cream itself doesn't really fall in a healthy category anyway, even if the ingredients are organic and natural. Straus Organic Cookie Dough Ice Cream might be gluten-free and organic, but once you see the nutritional stats, you'll understand why it's on our list.

Yes, this creamy frozen treat provides 10% of the iron, 10% of the potassium, and 25% of the calcium you need for the day, but that's all it has going for it nutritionally. Otherwise, it's in the junkiest of junk food categories. First of all, a serving size is a whole container, which is 860 calories. Within those calories lie a treat that has 58 grams of fat. A full 36 grams of that fat is saturated fat, and it has 1.5 grams of trans fat. The saturated fat content is 180% of the DV. Additionally, it has 84 grams of sugar, representing 144% of the DV. So, eating a whole serving is more than just a little unhealthy.

Even going non-dairy doesn't mean that an organic frozen dessert is super healthy. We ran across a non-dairy frozen dessert called Cosmic Bliss Organic Plant-Based Dark Chocolate that's far from the healthy category, too. And without dairy, it doesn't even redeem itself with a lot of calcium like regular ice cream kind of does.

A ⅔-cup serving of this non-dairy dessert comes in at 230 calories. While it doesn't have tons of calcium, it does have 20% of the DV of iron and 10% of the DV of potassium. So, it's not as nutritionally bereft as some sweet organic treats. However, it's the fat and sugar that push this dessert treat over the edge. It has 17 total grams of fat, and 15 of them are saturated fats, which is 75% of the DV for saturated fat. Additionally, it has 15 grams of sugar, which represents 30% of the DV. So, don't be looking for this organic snack to be a healthy one.

Sweet organic sodas are another category of snack foods that tends to be unhealthy. It's a snack that dentists often urge patients to avoid because of sugar's and acid's potential to have a negative effect on teeth. Even without sugar, soda can cause enamel erosion. Then, there's the unhealthiness of too much sugar in itself. An example of an organic cola that has unhealthy qualities is Tuscanini Authentic Organic Cola Soda.

The ingredient list for this cola looks nice enough, with nothing but ingredients like carbonated water, citric acid, cane sugar, and natural flavors. It also contains caramel coloring, which has come under scrutiny recently because it can sometimes contain a potential carcinogen called 4-methylimidazole, which requires a health warning label in California. Without testing, there's no way to know how much 4-Mel might be in this drink.

Of course, the sugar content is of concern, too, since this drink has 28 grams of sugar, which is 54% of the DV. Granted, an original Coca-Cola has 65 grams of sugar, but that doesn't make 28 grams suddenly a saintly amount.

Not all protein bars are built alike, but when you see the word "peanut butter cup" mentioned alongside "protein bar," you'll certainly want to pause and check the nutrition content. Aloha Peanut Butter Cup Protein Bars have lots of great ingredients that should help give you the energy you need, but you might need to look a little closer at some of its other attributes.

The good news is that, with 10 grams of fiber and 14 grams of protein, this bar has plenty of plant-derived protein and fiber to go with its carbs. However, you still want to check the calorie and fat content. We noticed that there are 230 calories and 10 grams of fat here, with 3 of the fat grams being saturated fat grams. That's 18% of the total DV for saturated fat for the day. The sugar content isn't bad for a protein bar at just 5 grams. However, the brand is only able to get the sugar content as low as it does with the addition of monk fruit sweetener. While it's considered a safe sweetener, it might add a flavor you don't expect.

The Jambar Organic Malt Nut Melody Energy Bar is an example of a protein bar that looks good at first glance but ends up unbalanced when it comes to nutritional attributes. It has the problem many protein bars have: too much sugar.

When you look at the ingredient list, you'll probably be impressed by the fact that all of the sugars come from sources like dates and grapes, along with maple syrup and honey. There are also all kinds of whole grains here, and the proteins and fiber come from plant sources, too. However, the bar is more than just a snack at 240 calories. It has 10 grams of protein (20% DV) and 4 grams of fiber (15% DV). While the fiber content isn't as high as in the Aloha bar, it's still fine. The fat content is a little high at 7 grams, but there's only 1 gram of saturated fat. However, it's the sugar content that's concerning. Despite the sugars coming from sources that look healthy, there's still 14 grams of sugar here, which turns it into a full-on dessert.

Finally, we have Simple Truth Organic Snack Crackers as an example of an organic snack food that's not very healthy. Sure, it's made with organic ingredients, but they do not combine to make a healthy snack.

First of all, with only a single gram of fiber and 2 grams of protein, there's no balance for the carbohydrate load. Its 19 grams of sugars is surprising for a snack cracker. Even the leading buttery cracker, Ritz, only has 1 gram per serving. So, the sugar content is more along the lines of what you'd expect from candy than a savory treat. Simple Truth Organic Snack Crackers have 7 grams of fat, with 3 of them being saturated, while Ritz only has 4.5 grams with 1.5 grams of saturated fat. These buttery crackers have 320 milligrams of sodium in a serving, compared to the 130 milligrams in Ritz. So, the organic ingredients barely matter here.