My recommendations:

There are 23 ingredients or additives in here that I would not use if I was baking a chocolate/ peppermint muffin. I would use butter, flour, cocoa, egg, peppermint essence, sugar, salt and maybe a bit of milk or cream. Instead, to ensure these bars last on the shelf and have the correct texture, ingredients such as emulsifiers, humectants, liquid sugars, colours, modified starches, wheat fibre and vegetable oils are added.

There are no artificial flavours or colours but I am unable to buy into the sell that these are traditionally baked.

If you’re looking for a lunch- box filler, try to find one that adds nutrition, such as whole grains, oats, nuts or fruit and fibre. A guide when choosing a muesli bar is to look for one that has less than 2g saturated fat, less than 10g sugar, more than 1.5g fibre and less than 600kJ per bar.