Better Protein Bar Options

It’s 3:30 PM and you are hungry after eating lunch 3 hours earlier. But the problem is you forgot to grab your snacks before you left the house this morning. But then you remember the stash of protein bars in your desk. Yay! Just the thing to keep you going until you get off work at 5:00 PM. Hopefully scenarios like this one don’t happen very often, and you have plenty of unprocessed/less processed snacks with you at all times so you don’t become overly hungry.

Since protein bars are processed and often have added sugar, it is better to try and eat real, unprocessed foods more often. But there may be times when you need to grab a quick snack. Protein bars can be a convenient, ready-to-eat snack to help fuel your body before a workout or to eat after exercising to help with muscle repair. Protein bars come in a variety of flavors and often have a shelf life of 6-12 months; therefore, they can be convenient to have on hand.

If you go down the grocery store aisle that has the protein bars, you will likely see dozens of bars to choose from. So how do you decide which are the better bars to choose? On the Health Plus program you are trying to decrease your fat and added sugar intake while making sure you are consuming enough protein. These principles have helped guide my list of protein bar options.

Here’s what to look for in a protein bar:

• a short ingredient list
• more “real/whole food” in the ingredient list such as whole grains or whole grain kernels, fruit, nuts and seeds
• 250 calories or less per bar
• 10 grams or less of added sugar. Added sugar includes sugar in ingredients like honey, agave, cane sugar, tapioca syrup, corn syrup, brown rice syrup and sweetened cranberries.
• 8 grams or less of total fat and no more than 3 grams of saturated fat. Bars containing more chocolate, coconut oil, palm oil, or palm kernel oil tend to have more saturated fat.
• at least 7 grams of protein per bar
• Avoid bars containing artificial sweeteners (bars containing more “natural” artificial sweeteners such as Stevia and monk fruit extract may be a better option) and avoid bars containing sugar alcohols (which can cause GI distress)

Here are some good choices for protein bars (note the specific flavors listed since some of the flavors have more fat and added sugar than other flavors). There are likely other protein bars that will meet the criteria listed above, but checking out some of the bars listed here may be a good place to start.

Information compiled from:
Nutrition Action Newsletter September 2022
https://www.eatthis.com/best-protein-bar/
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/are-protein-bars-good-for-you#benefits