They may be marketed as healthy fast food but cereal bars might only be a quick way of piling on the pounds.

HAVEN'T got time for a meal? Have a bar of something instead. Fruit and cereal bars are the latest form of easy food on the go. Ideal if you've missed breakfast, for a school lunch box or if you're out and about. And they sound so healthy, don't they?

Well yes. But while none of these are exactly slimming - fruit, nuts and cereal are naturally high in calories - some of the cereal bars on the market are also full of added sugar and fat. Some also taste disgusting.

The worst problem was that many of the bars were just too sweet, very sickly and bound together with too much glucose syrup. Others were dry - too much cereal, not enough fruit - while the virtuous organic bars tended to taste of grass cuttings and be rather worthy and not very nice. Many bars also had a surprising amount of fat. If you're cheerfully packing one of these in your child's lunchbox every day, then read the label carefully. You might be surprised to find what you're giving them.

OUR FAVOURITES

EAT NATURAL FRUIT AND NUT BAR

Brazil nuts, almonds, sultanas, peanuts, rice, hazelnuts, apricots, honey, peach, glucose syrup. Sweet and rich and delicious. The individual ingredients are recognisable and tasty. It also has fun on the wrapper too, with little jokey comments such as: "Our sultanas...are like a Greek shipping magnate - dark, wrinkled and very rich."

Just the thing to take if you're off to climb a mountain, walk the Pennine Way or have double maths first thing.

JORDANS ALL FRUIT BARS

100 per cent fruit, has the appearance and consistency of bike brake blocks. No added sugar but still very sweet and also with a good sharp tang.

JORDANS LUXURY BARS

Lots of sugar, lots of fat, but a really good taste of cranberry and almonds.

ORGANIC FRUITIUS CHEWY APPLE

CEREAL BAR

132 cals per 35g bar, 14 per cent sugar, 3 per cent fat.

Good fruity taste, nice texture and flavour. Sweet but not sickly.

ALRIGHT OCCASIONALLY

ALPEN STRAWBERRY AND YOGHURT

3.1g fat per 29g bar.

Rice and wheat flakes with bits of freeze dried strawberries dipped in yoghurt coating.

DR GILLIAN MCKEITH'S LIVING FOOD ENERGY BAR

This describes itself as an "organic superfood bar", containing "sprouted grains and seeds harvested at the peak of enzyme activity". It's also made "with love and light", but it still tasted of grass.

EVERGO APRICOT AND YOGHURT

These were OK, but a bit dry and chewy and not a terrific flavour.

KELLOGG'S FRUIT AND FIBRE BARS

We're very partial to the cereal - especially the banana bits - so thought we'd like this bar. But unlike the cereal, it's very sweet with a sickly yoghurt topping.

NESTLE SVELTESSE RED BERRY, CEREAL AND CHOCOLATE BAR

"Liberate your belly button" says the wrapper.

Fewer than 100 calories in a 25g bar, this is very low in fat, but still high - more than 36 per cent - in sugar. If you're trying to lose weight, there are probably better things you can do with your 100 calories, but this would be sweet and fairly filling.

QUAKER FEASTER

You could recognise the oats, the nuts and the cranberries in this. Very good flavour, all held together with syrup, so a bit sickly but children liked it.

REBAR

Organic food bar that makes you feel virtuous just by reading the label. Ingredients include apples, raisins, carrots, spinach, alfalfa, cabbage, broccoli, kale, wheatgrass, celery, rosehip, parsley, cauliflower, cucumber, beetroot, peppers, watercress, tomatoes, garlic, raspberry.

So a bit of a shame really that after all that lot, it tastes strongly of grass and earth and terribly worthy. Children hated this. Grown-ups were more interested but not enthusiastic.

SAINSBURY'S BE GOOD TO YOURSELF

85 cals per 25g bar, so if you're calorie counting these are a good choice. But they were a bit of a dull sweet taste with only a hint of apple.

TESCO CHEWY AND CRISP

Oats and apricots and a lot of sugar. A third of this is sugar and a fifth is fat - probably why some people liked them so much.

TRAIDCRAFT GEOBAR

Raisin and apricot Fair Trade bars.

Chewy and fruity and a bit sweet, but we quite liked them.

NO THANK YOU

AINSLEY HARRIOTT BELGIAN CHCOLATE CEREAL BAR

151 cals per 35g bar.

If you want a chocolate bar, eat a chocolate bar and don't mess around with oats and rice and raisins. Each little bar has 6g of fat. It didn't even taste very nice.

FRUIT BOWL SCHOOL BARS

These boast about their high level of fruit but even though they are 48 per cent fruit, 62 per cent is sugar. Children loved them. Adults couldn't eat them.

KELLOGG'S CRUNCHY NUT BAR

Tasted like the cornflakes crumbs from the bottom of the box.

MCVITIES A:M GRANOLA BAR

133 cals, 4g fat per 35g bar.

This could have been delicious - nuts, fruit and sunflower seeds blended together with syrup. But there was too much syrup, making it sickly sweet. Nearly a quarter of this bar is sugar and it's so sweet it sets your teeth on edge.

TRACKER BREAKFAST YOGHURT

Made with oatflakes, cornflakes and crisped rice and tasted very much of dry cornflakes. Uninspiring.

WEETABIX CHUNKYFRUIT

35p for 45g. 160 cals, 3.1g fat per bar.

Soggy pastry, sickly sweet filling. Claims to be "packed with real fruit pieces". Well, there were some lumps in the goo. Does that count?

KELLOGG'S NUTRIGRAIN

34p for 37g.

Another limp, sweet, soggy offering. Nearly a third of this is sugar and it still tastes horrible.

PS. ON CHEESE AND ONION PASTIES

FOLLOWING our visit to Great Ayton and Donald Petch's wonderful pies, reader Margaret Griffiths (no relation) has come up with a solution of how to stop cheese always sinking to the bottom of pies and pasties.

"Put a layer of the lightly cooked onions on the pastry first, then put the cheese on top and then pour four tablespoonfuls of milk over it. It's the way I make a plate pie and it works for me," she says.

We'll give it a go.