About Us

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!

We still use it in moderation, but we believe Allulose is a far better option than sugar and natural sweeteners such as honey and maple syrup, which are still high in sugar despite having small amounts of beneficial vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.

Because it has no impact on blood glucose, Allulose is not included as added sugar in nutrition labels.

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 ismeasured in dropsbecause 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.

What about other "healthy" sweeteners?

Honey

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.

Honey also has many micronutrients and antioxidants which are not found in refined sugar, but it will undoubtedly still impact your blood sugar.

Coconut Sugar

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.

And yet, spike you will -- and that's what we're trying to avoid here at CrunchCraft.

Sugar Alcohols

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 issues.

Maple Syrup

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.

Unfortunately, most store-bought syrups are actually high fructose corn syrup with maple flavoring, which is even worse.

Date Sugar

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.

The sugar we do use, Allulose, can be extracted from dates in small quantities..

Other Fruit

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 NOT Granola?

Nope! 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 that's kind of a contradiction, so we went with trail mix.

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 in 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 Trail Mix, 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 trail mix 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. This isn't your typical raisins and peanuts trail mix.

    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 trail mix 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 coating 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 coating 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.