The 10 Unhealthiest Store-Bought Muffins
Muffins are a versatile and tasty snack. Blueberry, banana nut, and chocolate chip are just a few popular muffin flavors out there. Although many of these flavors lean towards sweet, these baked goods often walk the line between sweet and savory. Additionally, although they are often compared to cupcakes, muffins are often served for breakfast. The best muffins are light and fluffy, yet still warm enough that you can melt a little bit of butter onto them after slicing them open.
While making muffins from scratch is fairly easy, it's also a bit tedious. Grabbing some pre-made muffins at the grocery store offers a much more convenient alternative. That said, lots of store-bought muffins can be surprisingly unhealthy. In many cases, a single store-bought muffin can contain dozens of grams of sugar — nearly the equivalent of drinking an entire 12-ounce can of soda. Synthetic food coloring, corn syrup, and other highly-processed ingredients are also common ingredients in pre-made muffins.
It's a good idea to try and be more mindful of the ingredients contained in store-bought muffins, due to their potential lack of nutrition. The good news is that we've assembled a list of some muffins that might be best to steer clear of. Here are 10 of the unhealthiest store-bought muffins on the market.
1. Marketside Triple Chocolate Muffins
Let's be real: Most people probably aren't expecting triple chocolate muffins to be the healthiest choice imaginable. At the same time, it's still surprising how devoid of nutrition these Marketside Triple Chocolate Muffins are. Aside from containing some iron, these muffins have very little to offer in terms of health.
These muffins are primarily made of sugar, enriched wheat flour, chocolate, and buttermilk. Not only is the muffin batter itself extremely chocolate-filled, but there are also semi-sweet chocolate chips strewn throughout each muffin. Notes of chocolate liquor in the recipe are also noticeable. These muffins are so packed to the brim with chocolate and sugar that they're almost fudgy.
Don't get us wrong — we definitely enjoy a little sweetness in our muffins, but these are overkill. One single muffin contains over 30 grams of sugar. If muffins don't have a decent level of nutrition or fruit to contribute, then what's the point? If we're going to be consuming this amount of sugar and chocolate for breakfast, we'd rather just go all out and load up on some chocolate-glazed donuts instead.
2. Café Valley Banana Nut Mini Muffins
Bananas are one of the most popular fruits in the United States. In fact, most Americans eat over 25 pounds of bananas every year. The popularity of bananas makes perfect sense — they're cheap, healthy, and easy to eat. Bananas and breakfast go hand-in-hand. During this meal, the fruits are often paired with oatmeal, cereal, and baked goods like muffins. But when bananas are processed into food for mass consumption, there's a good chance that there are some preservatives involved.
Such is the case with these banana nut muffins from Café Valley. Convenient and tasty as these muffins are, the ingredient list on this package is quite long. While these muffins aren't nearly as sweet as some of the other store-bought muffins on the market, they still contain a lot of sugar, considering that one muffin has about 16 grams.
Sugar aside, these muffins also contain a preservative called sodium benzoate. While it's true that sodium benzoate is a fairly common preservative found in a lot of prepared food items, it's still a chemical additive that's associated with some potential health concerns, according to Healthline. When consumed, sodium benzoate may turn into benzene, which is a potential carcinogen. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration limits the amount of sodium benzoate that can be added to food products, but some studies have shown that it's associated with inflammation and allergic reactions.
3. Little Debbie Birthday Cake Mini Muffins
Little Debbie is known for its iconic and affordable sweet treats. Swiss Rolls, Honey Buns, and Oatmeal Creme Pies are just a few of the company's tempting bakery items that grace the shelves of countless convenience stores and supermarkets across the country. Little Debbie also has a handful of different mini muffins. These come in a variety of flavors like strawberry shortcake, blueberry, and birthday cake.
Birthday cake is a popular flavor that's often featured in various brands of cake, muffins, cupcakes, and ice cream. Typically made with vanilla, birthday cake flavoring is also known for its rainbow-colored sprinkles. These Little Debbie Birthday Cake Mini Muffins carry on this tradition by featuring sprinkles that are made with different synthetic food colorings.
Some of these food colorings include Yellow 6, Red 40, Yellow 5, and Blue 1. According to Healthline, while Red 40 is commonly used in countless food products and approved by the FDA, this synthetic food coloring has also been associated with some rare allergic reactions and migraines. The bottom line is that if you're going to enjoy some store-bought muffins, you're better off heading to the store's bakery department. You should be able to easily find some muffins that are even more delicious and also contain fewer additives.
4. Entenmann's Little Bites Snickerdoodle Muffins
Entenmann's is another popular brand that's commonly found in grocery stores nationwide. The company sells a wide range of products including donuts, pies, pastries, brownies, and muffins. Entenmann's has a line of mini muffins in several flavors including chocolate chip, party cake, banana, strawberry yogurt, and snickerdoodle.
Entenmann's Little Bites Snickerdoodle Muffins feature the prominent taste of cinnamon and sugar that snickerdoodles are known for. The recipe mostly contains sugar, bleached white flour, modified corn starch, soybean oil, eggs, and brown sugar. Nutritionally, there's very little benefit to these muffins aside from a small amount of protein and calcium.
If you're going to have some muffins, you might as well try and score some that offer you more vitamins and minerals. These days, it's pretty easy to find muffins that at least contain a good dose of fiber through the addition of ingredients like flax seeds. These snickerdoodle muffins are cheap and sweet, but the reality is that you can easily find muffins that are just as tasty and even more nutritious.
5. Meijer Chocolate Chip Muffins
Meijer is a chain of grocery stores located mostly around the Midwest. The company has its own line of pre-made baked goods, including a variety of muffins that come in flavors such as banana nut, lemon poppyseed, blueberry, and chocolate chip. While Meijer's Chocolate Chip Muffins are definitely tasty, they leave much to be desired when it comes to their nutritional content.
One single chocolate chip muffin contains a whopping 28 grams of sugar — which is well over half of the recommended daily intake. One muffin also contains 25% of the recommended saturated fat for the day. Beyond all the sugar and fat, these muffins also use enriched wheat flour.
Enriched wheat flour may seem healthy on the surface since it contains the word enriched. But enriched flour is basically just flour that has been plundered of its nutrients during processing, and then "enriched" again with some vitamins to replace what was lost. The issue here is that in most cases, the added vitamins don't make up for all of the nutrition that was lost in the process. While it's true that a lot of muffins and processed baked goods contain enriched flour, it's also true that plenty of others don't. Combined with the high sugar content and saturated fat, there are other muffin options that are more wholesome that can still satisfy your sweet tooth.
6. Favorite Day Bakery Blueberry Streusel Muffins
Streusel — a crumbled topping usually consisting of sugar, butter, and other ingredients — makes blueberry muffins even better by adding texture and flavor to the mix. At the same time, there's no doubt that streusel adds more unhealthy components to the equation. If you're focused on trying to eat things that are more nutritious, then these Favorite Day Bakery Blueberry Streusel Muffins probably aren't the best choice for breakfast.
Just to be clear, we aren't taking issue with the flavors here. These muffins are definitely delicious. They've even earned a nearly perfect five-star rating after almost 700 reviews on Target's website. It's not the taste that we're concerned with here, but rather the question of how potentially unhealthy the ingredients are.
These muffins mostly contain enriched flour, sugar, canola oil, and blueberries. The good news is that the blueberries in these are fresh and add some lovely moisture to the muffins. The bad news is that a single muffin contains over 40% of the recommended daily sugar intake. If you're searching for some healthy muffins, it's safe to say that these don't really meet the criteria. There are other store-bought muffins on the market with less sugar that still deliver deliciousness.
7. Little Debbie Strawberry Shortcake Mini Muffins
Strawberry shortcake has a lot of variations in the world of dessert. It's typically served with shortcakes or biscuits, but it can also be featured in ice cream, cookies, and muffins. Little Debbie smartly cashes in on the flavor's popularity by offering a pack of Strawberry Shortcake Mini Muffins.
The issue with these muffins is that rather than just using fresh strawberries, the recipe uses "strawberry flavored bits" — and it uses more of these than actual strawberries. These strawberry-flavored bits are made with dextrose (a sweetener made from corn or wheat), sugar, wheat flour, palm oil, strawberries, citric acid, and various food colorings. Of course, it's much healthier to eat plain strawberries than it is to consume highly processed strawberry-flavored bits that are bathed in sugar and synthetic food dyes.
If you're in the mood for some strawberry muffins, you're better off buying some plain muffins with less sugar and just pairing them with some fresh strawberries from the produce section of the grocery store. The grocery's bakery department might also have muffins or pastries that use fresh strawberries too, which would also be a better alternative.
8. Bakery Fresh Goodness Cream Cheese Muffins
Cream cheese has a knack for adding some extra richness to just about everything it touches. Cheesecake, carrot cake, red velvet cake, and cream cheese frosting are just a few of the ways that cream cheese is commonly used in desserts. Bakery Fresh Goodness' Cream Cheese Muffins make use of this popular baking ingredient. Unfortunately, they are quite heavy and highly sweetened.
These muffins are mostly made with sugfar, eggs, enriched bleached flour, high fructose corn syrup, and a cream cheese blend. As Healthline reports, when eaten in excess, high fructose corn syrup has been known to cause health issues such as fatty liver disease, obesity, and insulin resistance — which can lead to diabetes.
The sugar content in these muffins definitely tips towards the higher end of the spectrum compared to other muffins on this list. Just a single one of these muffins accounts for about 54% of the daily recommended sugar intake (from added sugar alone). Sugar aside, one muffin also comprises over 25% of the cholesterol that you should consume for an entire day. These muffins also contain preservatives and synthetic food coloring.
9. Nature Valley Soft-Baked Chocolate Chip Muffin Bars
These Soft-Baked Chocolate Chip Muffin Bars by Nature Valley are formed into bars instead of the traditional shape of a muffin, but they still have all the hallmark textures and flavors of your typical muffin. The chocolate chip muffin bars are soft, moist, and chocolatey.
To their credit, they are made with whole grain wheat flour — but they are also made with unhealthy ingredients like corn syrup, palm oil, and fructose. Fructose in particular is something that we should all be more mindful of. According to Healthline, consuming too much fructose is linked to diseases like cancer, heart disease, obesity, and diabetes.
Other than a little iron and some fiber, there's very little that these muffins have to offer nutritionally. If you're looking for something healthier, you're probably better off getting some unsweetened granola bars or taking a look at fresher options in the bakery department. Better yet, for a quick breakfast or mid-day snack, try having a little Greek yogurt and some fresh fruit instead.
10. Bimbo Mini Mantecadas Vanilla Muffins
These Bimbo Mini Mantecadas Vanilla Muffins taste like little pound cakes, which makes them tempting to top with whipped cream or jam. Tasty as they are, these muffins aren't exactly the healthiest way to kick off the day for breakfast. These muffins contain shortening, which is highly processed, contains a lot of fat, and is very high in calories, with barely any nutritional content.
Aside from some trace amounts of vitamins and minerals, there are very few health benefits to eating these muffins. They are high in saturated fat, cholesterol, and sugar. At the end of the day, the truth is that lots of store-bought muffins aren't healthy. Rather than relying on store-bought muffins for sustenance and nutrition, you're better off making a batch of muffins from scratch at home. Not only can that be more cost-effective, but it will also allow you to have complete control over the recipe, empowering you to add healthier ingredients like seeds, nuts, and healthy fats.