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Battle of the energy bars
Anyone who participates in a sport is likely to want a fast source of nutrition, hence the proliferation of energy bars at corner stores, groceries and supplement shops alike. You can order them with custom ingredients online. You can eat them anytime. Here are a few, reviewed, friend of mine.
Clif
My favorite weirdly-abbreviated-geological-formation flavor is, inexplicably, carrot cake. Clif’s Web site says: “Just like eating a slice of Great Aunt Edna’s award-winning carrot cake.”
Uh, not really. It resembles carrot cake about as much as the chalky brown coating on most energy bars could be said to resemble chocolate. Still, the flavor and texture is not unpleasant, which is high praise for an energy bar.
The regular Clif bar is one of the sort of energy source that eschews a chocolate coating for a more homogenous taste and feel — although the carrot cake flavor has little bits of pseudo-icing distributed throughout. The bar is exceptionally dense, and I suspect a suit made of Clif bars would attract bears but repel bullets. Nonetheless, the bland but inoffensive taste, which improves proportionally with hunger levels, combined with its durability and inability to melt in any significant way makes the plain Clif bar an ideal selection for long backpacking trips, especially in the heat of the Texas summer.
Plus, I never get tired of reading the Clif makers’ inspirational business story while stopped for a rest under a live oak. Contains 10g protein, 46g carbs, 4g fiber.
Clif Builders
Clif Builders provides more protein as well as the ubiquitous chocolate coating in a bulked-up version of their popular bar. Clif Builders abandons the “tan lump” aesthetic for a rectangular shape, like nearly every other energy bar on the market. Since the Builders bar will melt, I don’t advise taking it on any long trips, unless you want your hands to look like you’ve been spending too much time with poo-flinging monkeys. In fact, I refrigerate mine (Peanut Butter is my favorite Builders bar, with Cookies ‘n’ Cream a close second) if I plan on taking them out of the house.
The flavor, however, is terrific. Well, OK: it isn’t roast-pheasant-with-demi-glace-terrific, or even chocolate-cake-terrific. But it does taste pretty much like your regular candy bars, and contains lots of chocolate and caramel, with just the slightest hint of chalkiness. Yum. The Peanut Butter flavor has 20g protein, 30g carbs, and 4g protein.
EASAdvantEDGE
This is also a pretty nice-tasting bar. A crisped rice and peanut core sits on a layer of chocolate, with more chocolate drizzled on top. Because of the crisped rice, the EAS bar is much less heavy than either of the Clif bars (neither of which I can eat in one sitting), a definite advantage when it needs to be consumed quickly.
The EASAdvantage (Chocolate Peanut Butter Crisp) has 17g protein, 27g carbs, and 6g fiber, which is a pretty good all-around figure.
Kashi GoLean Chewy and PowerBar Protein Plus
I’m reviewing the Kashi and PowerBar selections together because they are similar in composition. The Kashi flavor I tested (if you can call it that) is peanut butter and chocolate, while the PowerBar version is chocolate peanut butter. The Kashi Bar is a little bit thicker, but narrower, while the PowerBar sticks to the more common slender rectangular shape. Both offer a sort of whipped peanut butter-y filling with a chocolate coating.
It is actually difficult to determine which is more horrible. The Kashi bar is grainy in texture, and the chocolate flavor is weak, as if the person mixing it was having a bout of ennui. A bite of the Kashi bar seems to expand in the mouth, and is so thick that a 5K could be run before you could finish chewing it.
The PowerBar offers a different take on the same vileness. The filling is a little more airy, and the chocolate much more substantive. This is not a good thing. One imagines this very chalky brown choco-disgrace muscling its way into the esophagus, screaming about the need for protein in a sort of energy-bar ‘roid rage. Seriously, there needs to be a choking warning on both of these bars (or at least a gag warning).
The PowerBar has 23g of protein, 39g of carbs, and 1g fiber, while the Kashi has 13g protein, 48g carbs, and 6g fiber. (I guess the Kashi food scientists figure that if you are going to go through the trauma of eating this thing, you may as well eliminate it quickly.) On the basis of being the least disgusting, the Kashi bar muscles its way to next-to-last place in this rating.
Comments
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By Chris
March 28, 2008 3:10 PM | Link to this
You should try the Detour bars. 30g of protein with about the least amount of sugar I have seen in any energy bar. They actually don’t taste half bad either.
By John
April 1, 2008 10:28 AM | Link to this
Most of the carbs in these bars is in the form of sugar, which effectively “cancels out” the reason to eat them in the first place. You oughtta do a comparison of protein bars with the highest amount of protein vs lowest amount of sugar. Or maybe I should do this. Hmmm…
By Narlenb
June 11, 2008 1:29 PM | Link to this
It seems to be a misconception of many that a protein bar is actually supposed to be balanced to aid in weight loss. Actually all it is supposed to be is an alternative to making shakes or cooking to get the protein you need. Companies advertise that certain protein bars have 30 grams of protein or some amazing number that sounds like you just eat it and you’re competing for Mr. Universe. The body can only injest so many grams of protein alone before some of it is stored as fat. Anything over about 21 grams of protein is getting either flushed, literally, and then a very small amount will be stored as fat depending on just how mush you tried to injest. Some people that attempt the diets that allow only protein with very little other sustenance experience liver or kidney problems/issues due to the amounts of amino acids the body is trying to process.