Larabar Cashew Cookie

Larabar Cashew Cookie ($1.79, harris teeter)
1.7 oz / 48 g

Calories: 210
Cals from Fat: 110
Total Fat: 12g (19%)
Sat. Fat: 2g (11%)
Potassium: 320mg (9%)
Total Carb: 23g (8%)
Fiber: 3g (10%)
Sugar: 14g
Protein: 6g

Ingredients: cashews, dates

Wait, what? Cashews and dates? That's it? Whoa. Compared to those balance bars these are positively primitive. So of course the $64,000 question: how do they taste? Well, lets start with how they look. They look like a bar of homemade soap. I'm not kidding. The dates and cashews have been ground up and pressed into a semi-translucent bar that really looks like some fancy soap you might buy at whole foods. I'd be proud to display this in my bathroom. The taste is, well, cashews and dates. It almost begs the question of why I'm not eating a handful of cashews mixed with dates, which would surely be less than $1 per ounce. That said, its a pretty good ratio of dates to cashews, and the whole "bar" concept is pretty cool - they managed to press it without making it too dense or rubbery. I'd sort of expected some of the dryness of the other pressed date bars, but this is a step above most of them. As you might expect, there is no "nutrition bar" taste whatsoever, delicious. A good bar.

As a fun bit of research, I found that chopped dates happen to fall around $0.30 an oz, and cashew pieces about $0.50 an oz, so you could approximate the experience of this bar for about $1.36 plus a bit of squeezing. I guess the squeezing is worth $0.43.

balance bar honey peanut

balance bar honey peanut ($1.39, harris teeter)
1.76 oz / 50 g

Calories: 200
Cals From Fat: 60
Fat: 6g (9%)
Sat. Fat: 3g (15%)
Cholesterol: <5mg (1%)
Sodium: 160mg (7%)
Potassium: 160mg (5%)
Total Carb: 22g (7%)
Fiber: <1g (3%)
Sugar: 17g
Protein: 15g (28%)

Ingredients: soy protein isolate, calcium caseinate, whey protein concentrate, high fructose corn syrup, high maltose corn syrup, roasted soybeans, sugar, roasted ground peanuts, fractionated palm kernel oil, honey, cocoa processed with alkali, natural flavor, lactose, soy lecithin, dextrose, salt, canola oil, sunflower oil, fish gelatin, oligofructose.

Yet another scary ingredient list. This is a chocolate covered bar with nougat inside. Well, given the ingredient list and the taste, its actually a bar of stuff covered in a brown shell. It basically tastes like that, too. In contrast to the last balance bar this one seems to taste better if you take smaller bites. The other muppet must have taste-tested this one. The taste is actually not all bad - the initial chemical taste has largely evaporated as I slowly make my way through the bar. The texture is basically ok - soft but with some random peanuts here and there. This thing is striving to be a candy bar, and given the nutrition facts and ingredients list I'm not sure how this is that much better than a snickers, once its all said and done.

Balance almond brownie

Balance almond brownie ($1.39, harris teeter)
1.76 oz / 50 g

Calories: 200
Cals From Fat: 50
Fat: 6g (9%)
Sat. Fat: 1.5g (8%)
Cholesterol: <5mg (1%)
Sodium: 75mg (3%)
Potassium: 220mg (6%)
Total Carb: 22g (7%)
Fiber: 2g (8%)
Sugar: 17g
Protein: 14g (25%)

Ingredients: soy protein isolate, calcium caseinate, whey protein concentrate, high fructose corn syrup, high maltose corn syrup, cocoa processed with alkali, almonds, fructose, ground almonds, roasted soybeans, honey, natural flavor, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, dextrose, fractionated palm kernel oil, oligofructose, fish gelatin, beta carotene, annatto.

Wow, those are some crazy ingredients, and look: most of them are sugar of one kind or another. Weird. This has the look and feel of a brownie, but has a strong, scary nutrition bar taste. It really tastes completely unnatural. If you take larger bites more of the chocolate taste comes through so my only guess is they have some enormously wide-mawwed taste tester working at balance. Maybe one of the muppets. By halfway through the bar (large bites) I sort of acclimated to the taste and it got down to being a bit more brownie-like. The texture of this bar is good - slightly dry and nutty like any pre-packaged brownie. You might be able to fool someone into thinking this was a little debbie if you could get past that initial chemical taste. I went and got some coffee thinking that would help but the chemical taste was just as strong after letting the bar sit for a couple of minutes, even after a slug of coffee.