Energy bars are among the worst things that you can eat. Some of them are nothing more than candy bars masquerading in a “healthy” disguise. Companies try to conceal the lack of nutrition in their products with phrases like “the complete nutritional food bar” (Balance Bar) or “Fuel for Optimum Performance” (Powerbar). But when you get right down to it, energy bars contain nothing more than a lot of sugar, fat, fiber and a small amount of protein.

To create a niche for a new bar in a dog-eat-dog marketplace, each manufacturer needs a new twist. Names like Ironman and Steel sell, but they are no longer enough. Viactiv and Luna bars target women. Clif and Boulder go the natural route. And Think! promises to boost your brain power with herbs and vitamins.

There are a few ingredients that you should look out for in an energy bar. The Food and Drug Administration requires all ingredients on a bar to be listed in order of quantity used. If refined sugars are the first or second ingredient, it is not a good choice. Refined sugars like sucrose, corn syrup, brown rice syrup and chocolate are frequently found high on this list. Another ingredient to watch out for is saturated fat, which can cause heart disease and cancer. Many energy bars use hydrogenated oils and tropical oils such as coconut oil or palm kernel oil, which are rich sources of saturated fat.

For example, an average Powerbar consists of brown rice syrup, whole oats, rice crisps (milled rice, sugar, salt, barley malt), evaporated cane juice syrup, roasted soy beans and a chocolatey coating (sugar, fractionated palm kernel oil, alkalized cocoa). Two out of the top five of these ingredients are sugars: brown rice syrup and evaporated cane juice syrup. Eating this means that you will get a quick sugar high followed by a sugar crash. Another ingredient is the artery-clogging fractionated palm kernel oil. Only the oats and the soybeans provide any natural nutrition to speak of, in the form of protein. Powerbar supplements this lack of nutrition by adding a host of artificial vitamins.

In addition, there is nothing magical about the 40-30-30 carbohydrate, protein, fat philosophy that most energy bars like to follow. One popular brand of 40-30-30 bar listed soy protein as the first ingredient, corn syrup as the second and fractionated palm kernel oil as the third. Instead of a miraculous combination of nutrients, what you are really eating here is a lot of sugar and saturated fat.

Most of the ingredients in an energy bar are anything but natural and provide no nutrition. The highly processed milk and soy protein, high-fructose corn syrup, oils, vitamins and minerals are anything but an ideal food. Missing are the vegetables, beans, low-fat diary and other real foods that can cut the risk of cancer, heart disease and stroke. The energy bar phenomenon capitalizes on a real human need for a convenient, nutrition-dense concentrated food that keeps well, provides energy and tastes good. Such foods do indeed exist—and they aren’t what you see under that energy bar wrapper.