Consumer Reports recently did a piece on 100-calorie snack packs -- those convenient, small, pre-packaged packets of chips, cookies, crackers, etc. designed to make it easy to have a snack and control your calories at the same time. But it turns out that such convenience has a pretty big price tag. The summary:
The price of those 100-calorie packs will certainly lighten your wallet. On average, they cost from 16 to 279 percent more per ounce than the versions in regular packages, according to a study conducted last year by the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
As such, here's what Consumer Reports gives as their bottom line on these snacks:
If you can buy snacks in their regular packages and use an ounce of willpower, your wallet will stay fatter.
Ha! ;-)
We don't eat that many snacks the way it is (our favorite is chips and salsa, and if we buy decent chips it's a fairly healthy treat), but when we do we always buy the big boxes and break them up into pouches if need be. I think the only time we've ever used the smaller bags was when we needed a bunch of pre-packaged snacks for the team after my son's soccer game.
Anyway, these products are just another example that convenience often has a higher price.
This is where Costco is my friend. I love pretzels and carrots and such for lunch. As soon as we get home from Costco with the massive bags of stuff, I break out the Ziploc bags and go to work. If my wife and I take 30 minutes, we have a fridge drawer and a cupboard shelf full of quick to grab snacks or lunch bag fillers. I know we are saving money.
I also am not a big fan of the alternative stuff they put in those hundred calorie packs. The grasshopper cookies are crappy cookies with a little mint on them. They are different. Not a fan.
Posted by: Bill | November 11, 2008 at 05:32 PM
Great idea to pre-package them yourself with ziplocks. It still won't work for my family because the only snacks we keep in the house is popcorn for the air popper. This is still a good tip to keep in mind for if we do start keeping snacks in the house.
Posted by: Tarah | November 11, 2008 at 06:00 PM
I've been forcing myself to snack only on fruit lately -- healthy and relatively cheap. :)
Posted by: Shaun Connell | November 11, 2008 at 06:07 PM
Buying the large bag and then making individual servings with ziplock bags is probably the cheapest option for most people.
I buy the bulk variety pack at Costco. You get about 50 small 1oz bags of chips for $10 so thats 20¢ each. Thats not a bad price for the variety you get.
If I have a big bag of chips in the house then I do NOT have the willpower to eat small portions so the little bags help me control my serving sizes. The variety pack gets me a variety of chips without having to buy 6 different large bags of chips.
Jim
Posted by: Jim | November 11, 2008 at 06:47 PM
Wow! Yeah... I love those little 100 calorie packs! I have also gotten the bulk variety pack at Costco. However, when I bought a box of Cheez-Its and discovered the REAL thing, I realized I had been missing out on ounces of fatty joy! Therefore, I must take your advice and use an "ounce of willpower". But it's hard!! My husband and I are definitely snackers, and considering we're both constantly on the go, snacks are the easiest things to grab for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
I guess we should start prepackaging with Ziplocs as well!
Posted by: Alex | November 12, 2008 at 12:42 AM
Since you brought it up... Why is it that every little accomplishment in a child's life needs to be rewarded by food nowadays? This drives me nuts. I've actually had to put my foot down when I've coached in the recent past, as parents wanted to bring treats to reward the kids after both games *and* practices. We ended up limiting it to just the games. I was thrilled this past season when nobody made the move arrange a snack schedule. And guess what? The kids showed up, played, had fun, and went home happy -- even without a treat at the end. Imagine that, playing sports for the fun of it!
(Yes, I do realize that I sound like a grumpy old curmudgeon, but this sort of thing is just stupid.)
Posted by: fivecentnickel.com | November 12, 2008 at 08:00 AM
Nickel --
Yes, you sound grumpy. ;-)
What about the pre-practice snack? You don't have those? :-)
Posted by: FMF | November 12, 2008 at 08:07 AM
Fivecentnickel - I agree with you totally. In most the leagues my boys have played in, the parents wanted to do a snack and a drink. Sometimes our games would be right around lunch time and it made no sense to me. The only snack I ever agreed with was fruit at half time of soccer games. It's better now that they are older.
Posted by: Laura S. | November 12, 2008 at 11:54 AM
I just bought a huge container of pub mix from Sam's and broke it down into a couple ziploc bags for work. Makes a nice little snack when I'm bored.
Posted by: Kevin M | November 12, 2008 at 12:24 PM