Over the past few weeks, I’ve been tracking my food intake on My Fitness Pal (because it syncs with my Jawbone) and I’ve noticed how many nutrition and protein bars I eat in a typical week. Contrary to popular belief, all nutrition bars are not made equally. Unfortunately, many of the super nutritious ones taste like poo (real talk). And others that taste great aren’t nutritious at all – they are loaded with sugar and calories. This gave me the idea to do some independent research on the most common nutrition bars that I consume. I evaluated each bar by my personal 5 critical criteria (listed below) and then added in my own personal preference for the official GRIT by Brit Nutrition Ranking.
Brit’s Nutrition Bar Criteria:
- High Protein
- Low sugar
- Great taste (according to me)
- High Fiber
- Low Calorie
I know some people may care about other things like organic ingredients, other vitamins and minerals etc., but I just chose to focus on these 5 nutrition elements because they are most critical for weight management. Any who, I put the bars to the test and here are the results! I hope you find this information helpful.
Ranking #1 on my List is the Kashi Go-Lean Crips Chocolate Pretzel Bar. Not only am I obsessed with the taste, but these bars are full of fiber and protein and only have 160 calories (which equals 16 minutes on the elliptical) YIPPEE!
Ranking LAST on my list is the Amazing Grass: Super food Chocolate Whole Foods Energy Bar. I mean…how is this even considered “healthy”? It’s loaded with sugar and hardly provides and protein and fiber. I find this to be true with a lot of “energy” bars. Be careful my friends. Organic and Super Food labels don’t always mean healthy…
What are your favorite nutrition bars? Any favorites? Any you hate?
7 Comments
My favorites are Raw Bars. They are higher in calories but taste awesome and are made without refined sugar, 100 % organic, have omega 3&6, yada yada yada. Not that organic healthy ingredients matter that much to me when I’m still eating things like cake and ice cream, but it makes me feel better mentally about eating a nutrition bar. My favorite is Chocolate Coconut Bliss. 240 calories (150 from fat- yikes- but only 5 of those are saturated and no trans fat). 12 gr sugar, 7 gr protein, 5 gr fiber. I normally only eat them on long bike rides tho (40 miles or more) when I need a boost.
hahah – I can totally empathize! Thanks for sharing! I will have to check out the Raw bars for myself 🙂
why not the quest bar? It has more protein and fiber?
Quest bar is in the top 4! I just don’t like the taste as much as the Kashi Bar (I know that’s bad)
I like the Think Thin creamy peanut bitter bars!!
Great site! But your Nutrition Bar ranking does not make sense. Not trying to be difficult, but consider what you wrote about your #1 ranked versus #20 (dead last) ranked bars.
#1: One of the reasons you loved it is because “these bars are full of fiber.”
#20: One of the reasons you hate it is because “hardly provides any fiber.”
Meanwhile bar 1 has 5 grams of fiber and bar 20 has 4 grams of fiber.