Are Twiglets healthy? We take a close look at the knobbly snack
There are lots of British snacks which are very divisive, and it seems that we're really good at making products which people either love or hate.
Twiglets are definitely one of those products which people generally either love or hate. The people who love Twiglets will often describe them as a healthy alternative to crisps, but are Twiglets actually healthy? We wanted to take a close look at them to find out, let's get into it:
What are Twiglets made from?
We were generally impressed by how simple the ingredients of Twiglets are - they're mostly made from wholewheat flour. Yeast extract is used as a flavouring, and that makes complete sense as people often say that Twiglets taste like Marmite. Although Twiglets don’t contain Marmite as a listed ingredient, they do contain yeast extract, and that’s exactly what Marmite is. Twiglets are also oven-baked instead of fried like many crisps are.
Twiglets contain no artificial colours or flavors, but we were a little frustrated to see Potassium Chloride and Magnesium Chloride listed in the ingredients as these are artificial ingredients, and you don’t find artificial ingredients included in most crisps.
What is the nutritional breakdown of Twiglets?
Twiglets contain 421 calories per 100g, which is actually quite a bit less than you'll find in most crisps. For example, Walkers Ready Salted crisps contain 521 calories per 100g. Twiglets are also much lower in calories compared to something like salted peanuts, which contain 626 calories per 100g, 200 calories more than Twiglets per 100g.
We were also pleasantly surprised to see that Twiglets make for a great low fat alternative to most crisps - Twiglets contain just 13.4g of fat per 100g, and Walkers Ready Salted crisps contain 34g of fat per 100g, so you’re getting less than half the fat per 100g in Twiglets than what you’ll find in the same amount of Walkers Ready Salted crisps.
We were also impressed to see that Twiglets contain more than twice as much protein as Walkers Ready Salted crisps - you’ll find 12.4g of protein in 100g of Twiglets, whereas in the same amount Walkers Ready Salted crisps you’ll only find 6.1g of protein. Twiglets actually contain more protein than some crisps which claim to be high in protein such as
We were really surprised to see that Twiglets are actually higher in carbohydrates than Walkers Ready Salted crisps - you’ll find 57g of carbohydrates in 100g of Twiglets, whereas you’ll only find 53g of carbohydrates in 100g of Walkers Ready Salted crisps. It’s not a huge difference but we woul have expected Twiglets to be lower than the crisps. So definitely avoid Twiglets if you’re following a low carb diet!
It’s also worth mentioning that as with Marmite, Twiglets contain a good amount of Vitamin B12 due to the yeast extract in the ingredients.
We were also pleasantly surprised by how much fibre is in Twiglets, although given that they’re made from 80% wholewheat flour, we shouldn’t have been surprised. Twiglets contain 11.3g of fibre per 100g - this is more than 3 times the amount that you’ll find in Walkers Ready Salted crisps, which contain just 3.7g of fibre per 100g. Even in salted peanuts you’ll only find 6.8g of fibre per 100g. Fibre is a nutrient that most of us don’t get anywhere near enough of, so it’s great that Twiglets contain so much of this underrated nutrient.
We also would have assumed that Twiglets might contain a bit more salt than crisps, but they don’t - in fact, Twiglets contain 0.3g less salt per 100g compared to Walkers Ready Salted crisps.
So, are Twiglets healthy?
We’d say that Twiglets make for an excellent healthy alternative to crisps - they’re lower in fat, higher in protein, and much higher in fibre. If you like the taste of Twiglets then definitely consider swapping your crisps for them!
Let us know what you think of Twiglets and if you have any thoughts on how healthy they are! If you want to read something similar, we have a guide about how healthy Bovril is.
Finn H
Finn is the editor of You Well and has been writing about travel, health, and more for over 10 years.