Dried fruit snacks also unhealthy

Nutritionists said that many of the dried fruit snacks sold on market are deep-fried snacks stripped away of fibers and high in calories.

The report is in accordance with a study released yesterday by the Taipei Medical University Hospital (TMUH) on the nutrition facts of holiday snacks [largely consumed during Chinese New Year].

For the many self-acclaimed naturally-dehydrated dried fruits, the moistures are in fact processed off through a deep-frying method—adding calories and reducing fibers, said Su Hsiang-wen, a nutritionist from TMUH.

For instance, dried bananas grabbing the highest calories in the dried fruit category, has 528 calories per serving—equal to nine bananas. Dried veggies come second with 510 calories for every serving. The third highest, dried apple, contain 503 calories per serving.

The report uses 100 gram as one serving unit.

For snacks with the highest calories, nut-related snacks topped off the chart. Macadamia nuts have the highest calories with 76.8 gram of fat per every serving. Almond nuts come second with 57.5 gram and Pistachio comes third with 29.4 gram of fat, Su said.

Another category ranked is snacks with the highest level of sugar—Fried Twisted Dough Sticks (麻花捲) and Pineapple pastry (鳳梨酥) rank top two.

Snacks high in sodium are Cod Fish Snacks (鱈魚香絲) with 2070 mg, dried squids (魷魚絲) with 1728 mg and dried seaweeds with 1352 mg per serving, said Su. She added the daily health intake for sodium is only 2400 mg.

Worth noting is the health snack category that is high in fiber and low in calories. Konjac candy and dried Konjac slices are the top two healthy snacks, each with less than 100 calories per serving.

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