About Us
Learn what makes CrunchCraft different than other snack companies
Really, No Added Sugar?
You'll notice that most of our products are mildly sweetened, and that's by design. Despite having flavors like Caramel Pecan and Raspberry White Chocolate, CrunchCraft is designed to be a healthy and satisfying snack, not a decadent dessert.
The sweeteners we do use:
Allulose
This is a naturally occurring sugar in sun-dried fruits such as dates, figs, and raisins.
It's about 70% as sweet as table sugar, but because of the molecular bond in Allulose, it does not spike the blood sugar and has almost zero calories. As an added bonus, it does not feed the bacteria that cause cavities like sucrose does!
Stevia
We're well aware of the bitter aftertaste that stevia adds in many commercial products. The reason for that is they use far too much while trying to compete with the sweetness common in commercial snacks, protein bars, and granola bars.
The amount of stevia we use in each batch of CrunchCraft is measured in drops because a hint of sweetness is all you need.
Monkfruit
After careful research, we selected a chocolate brand that makes no-added-sugar chocolate. The chocolate has a fantastic nutrition profile and is sweetened with Monkfruit, rather than sugar alcohols or artificial sweeteners.
Monkfruit is about 200x more sweet than table sugar, but provides no calories or carbs.
Why NOT use other "healthy" sweeteners?
While it is often talked about as superfood, honey is still molecularly a sugar, and our bodies know it. While table sugar is 50% fructose and 50% glucose, honey measures in at 40% fructose. This slightly lower fructose concentration may be beneficial, since fructose has been linked to liver and metabolic diseases.
Coconut sugar is very similar in composition to table sugar. The reason it's often recommended as a "healthier" sugar alternative is that it contains a small amount of fiber, which slows your digestion so that any blood sugar spike will be more gradual.
Erythritol, Sorbitol, Maltitol... Any ingredient that ends in "-itol" is going to be a sugar alcohol. These are super common in many grocery store keto and paleo options, and honestly we hate that. It's one of the biggest reasons that we think CrunchCraft can do it better. Sugar alcohols are prone to sickly sweet aftertastes, and have their own potential health impacts, as well as digestive distress when consumed in excess.
Composed of mainly just sugar with a small amount of minerals and antioxidants, maple syrup is really not much healthier than table sugar. It has no fiber to slow digestion, and it's easy to eat a lot of it since it pours easily and let's be honest -- it's delicious.
Similar to coconut sugar, date sugar is still a digestible sugar and will spike your blood glucose. Since it's the entire dried fruit ground into a powder, some people consider it to be less refined than coconut sugar. It does also include some fiber, vitamins, and micronutrients.
Many "sugar free" recipes will use natural sugars from fruit such as mashed banana or applesauce in order to reduce added sugar in a recipe. Because it's natural, it's automatically good for you... right? Unfortunately, the sugars in fruits can still contribute to high blood sugar and insulin resistance.
So it's NUT Granola?
The "gran" in granola is derived from the same root as the word grain, as in oats, wheat, carbs... You get the picture. Some people call recipes like ours "grain-free granola", but we decided to name it after what's in it, rather than what's not -- hence, "nut granola"!
Our snacks are not only grain and gluten free, but also crafted to be extremely low in carbs per serving, and 100% free from added sugars and even limited on natural sugars that would spike your blood-sugar levels. In fact, our recipes have only 1g of sugar per serving, and 5g or less net carbs.
Okay, then what is CrunchCraft?
Nuts
All of our recipes contain tree nuts such as walnuts, almonds, cashews, and pecans in varying amounts to create the flavor and texture combination we think is best suited to each recipe.
So, why nuts? Because nuts are powerhouses of nutrition, filled with fatty acid chains of different lengths, micronutrients like magnesium, selenium, potassium, and iron, fiber, protein, and did we mention great flavor and crunch?
Seeds
All of our recipes have a few core seeds, which are there for health as much as texture. That includes chia and flax, which are omega-3 powerhouses, as well as sunflower seeds, which are among the highest in protein of any nuts or seeds, and packed with micronutrients such as Potassium, Zinc, Copper, Folate, Riboflavin, and Iron.
Coconut
Crispy and a little sweet, coconut makes an appearance in many of our recipes, and is the star of the show in our Piña Colada Small Batch Nut Granola, with an accompaniment of dried pineapple bits.
Coconut has essential medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs), which are good for your brain, fiber, and antioxidants.
Dried or Freeze-Dried Fruit
The right selection of fruit to compliment the ingredients in a batch of nut granola is -- sometimes literally -- like the cherry on top. A little burst of raspberry or a crisp bite of apple is exactly what we needed to bring that extra oomph to each of our flavors.
However, we also carefully select the amount of dried fruit to balance the flavor with the carbohydrates and sugars added by the fruit. Above all else, CrunchCraft is designed to be a snack you don't have to feel guilty about eating.
Spices
We go beyond what you'd normally get in granola by adding house-made spice blends to every batch -- cinnamon, vanilla, cardamom, and nutmeg, for example.
Each spice blend is made in-house and trialed until the flavor blends perfectly with the other components in each recipe. Just wait until we start experimenting with savory flavors!
Carefully Selected Coatings
Like the fruit, these coatings are carefully selected to maintain the guilt-free aspect of CrunchCraft crunching, while complimenting the flavor of the roasted nuts and seeds and the spice blends we add to them.
A few of the coatings we use are hand-crafted Allulose caramel, no-added-sugar white chocolate drizzle, and a blend of spices and coconut oil that can be drizzled into the mix before baking to enhance the roasted texture and flavor.
Ready to try CrunchCraft?
Satisfy your cravings with our small batch nut granola made with health in mind.
Email [email protected] to place an order.