Energy Bars

by Vicki Reich, from the October 2003 Newsletter

I am constantly amazed at the number of energy bars on the market. It seems like a new brand comes out every day and the old brands are constantly adding new flavors and styles. I’m not a big consumer of energy bars. I’ll eat an occasional Clif bar on a hiking trip, but that’s about it. I started to wonder if there was really that much difference between all of the bars that we carried. I figured this column was the best place to find out. I surveyed all my choices and found that all the brands we carry have some form of a peanut butter/chocolate combination. That was what I would test. I grabbed one of each, eight in all, and cut them into little bits. I placed each cut-up bar on a numbered plate and brought a tray of little plates into the staff room to see who I could wrangle into tasting them with me. The testers ended up being Laura, Kenna, Kate, Stacy and myself. We had all just had lunch and this would be our dessert. In order of tasting, here’s how we felt about each.

Clif Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter had a good peanut flavor but wasn’t too sweet. It had a nice crunch to it and reminded Stacy of a peanut butter cookie. It didn’t have a lot of eye appeal but it tasted good and hardy. Power Bar Harvest Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip has fun little chocolate chips on top that increased its eye appeal. It was sweeter and more flavorful than the Clif bar but wasn’t as hardy. It also had a nice crunch to it. Think Thin Low Carb Peanut Butter Lite looked really good but tasted terrible. Everyone was in agreement that the aftertaste was awful and tasted like chemicals. It was salty and had no peanut butter taste. Clif Luna Bar Nuts Over Chocolate had great eye appeal and was the bar people most wanted to try just by looking at it. It was light and crispy but it didn’t have much of a peanut butter taste. Some testers thought it tasted slightly weird. Power Bar Pria Chocolate Peanut Crunch also had great eye appeal. It was sweet and carmel-ly tasting, had a good crunch, but wasn’t very peanut-ty. It was the favorite of the group and Laura thought it tasted almost too sinful. Tiger’s Milk Peanut Butter was very peanut-ty. It was creamy, sweet and chewy. It reminded Kate of a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup. Balance Bar Honey Peanut was nougat-ty but had a bit of a crunch. It was not too sweet and did not have a strong peanut taste. It did have a slight vitamin aftertaste. Kashi Go Lean Peanut Butter and Chocolate was very chewy and chocolate-ly but had a slightly burnt peanut taste.

I was curious about the nutritional comparison between all the bars and made a quick Excel spreadsheet to compare 100 g servings of each of the bars. The results are in the chart below and are very interesting. Based on taste and nutrition, I think I’ll keep grabbing Clif bars for my hikes, but I’ll think about a Pria bar for dessert.

	calories	Weight (g)	Fat (g)	Carbs (g)	Fiber (g)	Sugar (g)	Protein (g)
Clif	368	100	9	63	7	29	16
Power Harvest	370	100	7	69	6	25	11
Think Thin	383	100	17	5	0	0	33
Luna	374	100	9	50	4	25	21
Pria	393	100	12	57	0	36	18
Tiger Milk	429	100	20	51	0	40	17
Balance	400	100	12	48	0	40	28
Kashi	371	100	8	61	8	40	17

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