What’s the Deal with Catalina Crunch?

A Bite-Size Read for Your Health and Waistline

Photo by Phil Aicken on Unsplash

Have you seen the packages in your local grocery store? Or the pop-up ads offering their subscription service? Catalina Crunch is a food brand offering cereal, cookies, and other snack mixes branded as never boring, “no-guilt” treats, instead of those carby, sugary, traditional foods.

For a bit of background, their founder launched the company in 2017 because he was a fan of sweets as a kid, but as a teen, became diabetic and struggled to find a satisfying substitute right for his favorite breakfast. Marketed as a low-carb, low-sugar option, and keto friendly, Catalina Crunch says they can also offer grain and gluten free snacks and cereals. All the food’s protein, micronutrients, and fiber comes from plants. Their products also offer non-GMO ingredients, nothing artificial, zero sugar or gluten, and grain-free. Sounds great, right?!

As a health coach and podcaster, I wanted to see for myself. Reviewing the label of their Cinnamon Toast Cereal, it offers 11 grams of protein, 9 grams of fiber, and 5 grams of net carbs. These stats check out! On to the next step of reviewing the ingredients. Marketing claims of free from grains and gluten always prompts me to see what it is made of. They make their cereal with a “Catalina flour,” which is made of pea protein, potato fiber, non-GMO corn fiber, and chicory root fiber. The rest of the ingredient list reads: Tapioca Flour, High Oleic Sunflower Oil, Baking Powder, Natural Flavors, Sea Salt, Calcium Carbonate, Stevia Extract, Monk Fruit Extract. For the most part, I’m OK with the sweeteners they use, and I like that the sweeteners are last on the list (it means there’s less of them in the food than the other ingredients). I’m not the biggest fan of the high oleic sunflower oil, especially depending on their cooking process which we don’t know (at high temps it can release toxins and some varieties are high in Omega 6 which exacerbate the very common imbalance of the Omega 3 to Omega 6 ratio).

As with all brands, we want to look at each flavor and each type of food before purchasing to assess. Catalina Crunch cookies boast 1 gram of sugar and 5 grams of net carbs. That all sounds great; and again, we want to look at those ingredients.