DID YOU NOT KNOW ABOUT CRACKERS (AND DON'T FALL FOR IT AGAIN!)

Say wine, snacks or haute cuisine and the gourmands at online food magazine FavorFlav know where to drink, how to eat it and what to cook. This time our cheffies serve you: you didn't know this about crackers.

Healthy breakfast with a nice light crispbread? Some crackers look healthier than they actually are, the AD revealed recently. They contain more sugar, salt, and calories than you might think.

Dietitians Berdien van Wezel and Desiré van der Kruk take a look at a few packs of crackers for the AD. Are they as healthy as they promise? It depends, say the two experts. Traditional crispbread consists of rye flour, water, and salt, so there's not much wrong with that. But nowadays, all sorts of fancy crackers with extra seeds and nuts are on supermarket shelves. ‘It works filling, but in terms of nutritional value? Not really relevant,’ says Van Wezel.

Brown is not better
You might think you have super healthy crackers because they are dark brown in color. Wrong, you are being fooled: that color comes from malt. But that doesn't make them extra healthy. ‘An example of this is the attractive Oerknäck series from Bolletje,’ warns dietitian Van der Kruk. The same trick is used with whole grain bread and toast.

Put it back!
The conclusion of the two: the cheaper the cracker, the healthier. And check the ingredient list: if it says rye flour, you're good. The experts recommend the triangular crackers from Leksand, and the lightweight, whole grain, and fiber-rich crackers from Wasa. If the packaging states that the crackers mainly contain regular flour, you better leave them (yes, we're talking about you, Bolletje), because those are just calories and no fiber. Is there a lot of salt in it? Put it back, that's not healthy either.

 
Bonbon as dessert
In general, crispbread contains quite a few calories when compared to bread. A slice of whole grain bread has 80 calories, a cracker has 40 to 60. So add it up and calculate, because two crackers mean of course twice as much topping as that one slice of bread. Slice of cheese (110 calories): boom. Moreover, people run the risk of thinking they are doing well with those whole grain crackers and then reward themselves in the evening with a bonbon, and another one. Well, then it doesn't add up.

Source: AD.nl