THIS OR THAT: Craisins vs. Raisins

  ...by request :)

VS

 

So when I started to look into this topic, I found it much harder to navigate and digest than expected.  It appears that different brands of craisins vary slightly in their nutritional information.  This variation predominately occurs because of the varying amount of sugar added to craisins during the manufacturing process.  It appears that on average, bulk craisins have slightly less sugar added.  However, I focused this comparison on Ocean Spray Craisins and SunMaid Raisins, just to standardize the comparison.  BUT, this just goes to show how important it is to look at the nutrition labels of different brands of the same items - despite what advertisments may say!

Anyway, back to the comparison...

The serving sizes of craisins and raisins are 1/3 and 1/4 cup respectively.  In 1/3 cup of craisins there is 130 calories, 26g of sugar (agh!) and 3g of fiber (yes!).  In 1/4 cup of raisins there is 130 calories 29g of sugar (!!!), 2g fiber (yay!), 1 g of protein, 6% of your daily amount of iron, and 2% of your daily calcium.  

So what does this mean...? 

 It means that there really isn't much difference.  If you want to get nit-picky, it seems like nutritionally, raisins may contain slightly more vitamins and minerals.  (Although craisins contain smaller amounts of other ones I didn't list above).  HOWEVER, raisins also contains more sugar.  But then again, they both contain A LOT of sugar.  (To put it in perspective: 29g of sugar is approx 6.2tsp of sugar!) That being said, they do contain antioxidants and fiber.  So they can be incorporated into a healthy diet, but  just be careful not to eat straight out of the bag...this can be super dangerous when you realize that the serving size is about one handful! 

VERDICT:  It's a toss up.  Pick whichever one you want! 

(and maybe hope that you have particularly small hands so you don't reach the serving size as quickly!)