We had stocked up on Power Bars and Protein Bars under the assumption we would be either on rivers a lot or on pickleball courts a lot. When you are on the river and, for example, you stop for lunch, you may just want to have one or two of these bars, especially if you don’t want to stuff a dry bag with sandwiches in your space-limited whitewater kayak. Similarly, if you are in a pickleball tournament (I had planned on a few) you don’t want to have anything heavy sitting in your stomach, so a power bar is an ideal snack to bring along.
Well, because of COVID, we had quite a few power bars and protein bars in our pantry. So, what to do with them? I decided to eat most of what we had for dessert, foregoing the normal cookie or piece of candy. I also wanted to be sure they didn’t sit around long enough for the nuts in them to go rancid.
So, the following are the power/protein bars I am reviewing: LÄRABAR, RXBAR, CLIF BARS, KIND BARS, LUNABAR, SKRATCH BARS, NUGO BARS, and HEB BARS.
I will give each of them a rating of High, Medium or Low for the following:
Stuck in your teeth – a high score means that you should take along floss with you because you will have remnants of the bar stuck in your teeth for quite a while.
Taste – just what it means.
Why have we tried so many? The easy answer is we were searching for ones that would hold up while we were kayaking and that would be tasty. I thought we had tried just about all the bars available, but I wasn’t sure, so I checked with Amazon. If there was one place you could find all the bars that are being sold, it would be on Amazon. Here is a link that gives you 50 (FIFTY!) types of bars and links to those bars.
These are the bars I tried and my assessment of them
LÄRABAR
When I eat these, I am reminded of old Western movies where the cowboys sit around a campfire trying to rip pieces of hardtack with their teeth. These bars, in my opinion, are gruesome. The last one I managed to swallow was the “Blueberry Muffin” bar. Unless the blueberry muffins you are used to have glue as an ingredient, these bars are nothing remotely like a blueberry anything.
Below is the nutritional information for the LÄRABAR blueberry muffin bar.
These have, I believe, the lowest amount of protein of any of the bars I tried. Here are my ratings:
Stuck in your teeth – High
Taste – Low
I had the chocolate sea salt bar, among others. I think they have the “RX” letters as part of the name because they are like eating medicine.
These are also gruesome, having (in my opinion) virtually no taste at all.
Here is the nutritional information:
These do, at least, have a lot of protein, but also a lot of fat.
Here are the ratings:
Stuck in your teeth – High
Taste – Low
CLIF BARS
A lot of people refer to Clif Bars as granola bars. Once again, if your granola has glue in it, then the description is accurate. The thing is, though, that they taste pretty good. My favorite is the Chocolate Chip bar but, despite being a chocoholic, I will not buy them again.
Here is the nutrition information:
Not a lot of fat, pretty good protein, but high calories.
My ratings:
Stuck in your teeth – High
Taste – Medium
KIND BARS
Now we are getting better. Kind bars are tasty, albeit a bit dense. My favorite is the Almond Butter Dark Chocolate.
Here is the nutrition information:
High protein, but high fat. Here are my ratings:
Stuck in your teeth – Medium
Taste – Medium
LUNABAR
Mmmm – Lunabar. Grate taste, but, like the others, a bit chewy. I like them. My favorite is the Chocolate Peanut Butter.
Here is the nutritional information:
Not too high in fat, but low in protein. Despite the taste, not the best bar because of that.
My ratings:
Stuck in your teeth – Medium
Taste – High
SKRATCH BARS
Similar in taste and texture to LUNABAR. Skratch has a lot of different and unique flavors, though, so if you are interested in a Parmesan, Sun Dried Tomatoes & Black Pepper bar, they have it for you! I will stick with chocolate.
Here is the nutritional information on this particular bar.
Not a lot of fat but, again, not a lot of protein.
Here are my ratings:
Stuck in your teeth – Medium
Taste – High
NUGO BARS
I was roaming through our local supermarket (HEB) a couple of days ago and saw these. I liked the picture – like I said, I’m a chocoholic.
Man oh man! These are good! They are like desert and, in fact, I may continue to buy them for that purpose alone. Taking them on the river, though, may be a different story – I suspect they might melt. Taking them to pickleball would be great if you keep them in a cooler. Check out the nutritional information:
Low fat, lower calories and high protein. What more can you ask for?
Here are my ratings:
Stuck in your teeth – Low
Taste – High
HEB BARS
Our local supermarket, HEB, carries a lot of their own products, including protein and power bars. I got the Passion Nut bars (no picture). I rate them similar to Kind Bars, except they are cheaper. Here is the nutritional information.
High fat and medium protein.
Here are my ratings:
Stuck in your teeth – Medium
Taste – Medium
SUMMARY
So, do I have a recommendation?
Yes – NUGO, but only if you can be sure they will be cool enough. Or, you can bring a bag of nuts, raisins and peanut M&Ms along.
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