Newman’s Own: Pretzel Conspiracy?

Pretzels often get a bad rap from the food police: they’re full of white flour, salt and not much else. But the Newman’s Own Organics The Second Generation line of pretzels appear to be an entirely different bag: they have 110 calories for 22 pretzels, 3 grams of protein, only 180 mg sodium and 4g dietary fiber.

Or that’s what the Nutrition Facts panel says…

The ingredient list looks like this:

  • Organic Unbleached Wheat Flour
  • Organic Brown Rice Syrup
  • Organic Sunflower Oil
  • Salt
  • Yeast
  • Soda

What’s weird about this? The only fiber-containing ingredient is the first one, and if you’ll note, it doesn’t say “whole wheat flour”. It’s unusual (and unlikely?) that “unbleached wheat flour” in a starchy snack will yield 4 grams of dietary fiber, particularly because the older (first generation?) line of pretzels had almost the same ingredient list, but showed less than 1 gram of dietary fiber per serving.

You can do your own comparison using Newman’s Own-provided ingredient and nutrition information via the link at the bottom of this page: Newman’s Own Pretzel Ingredient and Nutrition Information.

Where is all of this additional fiber coming from in the new pretzels? I await an answer from the Newman’s Own folks, but in the meantime, I’m hopeful that the Nutrition Facts panel is correct, because if so, these are a tasty and much-needed addition to the world of pretzels!