"ProteinBars" news and stories

If you stand in front of the shelves at the grocery store with a blank stare on your face, maybe you're just not able to decide on which of the bazillion protein bars you want to get. If that's the case, why don't you just make your own?

With YouBars, you can make your own, and you don't even have to go to the kitchen to get them; unless your computer's in the kitchen. You just pick all the ingredients you want in your bar, submit your order, and magically, they appear at your door! You get to pick the base, protein source, and any number of dried fruit, nuts, seeds, and other "stuff." The handy ordering form also keeps a running total of nutrition information as you make your choices.

It costs $40 for a box of 12, which comes out to about $3.33 a bar. That's quite a bit more expensive than what you'd pay at the store, but getting to name your own bar might be worth it.

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Somewhere in the course of the English food language, "meal replacement bars" mutated into "protein bars" as a general term. It's just a petty thing for me, but not all meal replacement bars are protein bars.

Anyway, there was a time when I was very very dependent on these bars. I was working as a consultant, flying all over the place, and was forced to eat in airports, in taxi cabs, at my desk, etc. Bars were easy and, in some cases, not too horrible tasting. But I have often wondered, are they really any better than a candy bar? As a short article in iVillage points out, these bars have the same number of calories, sometimes more, than say, a regular sized Snickers bar. These bars sure look like candy bars, and more and more, they have things like chocolate, marshmallows ("s'mores flavor"). If it's a meal replacement, they sure are small for a meal, for I've found that I often want to eat another one because I don't feel full. 

Are the "diet bars" really helping people lose weight? What about the true protein bars that look like canned spam and taste like peanut butter mixed with tree bark? Are they really that useful for athletes? IVillage has a few tips about how to effectively make use of meal replacement bars if you have to.

7-Eleven plans to enter the health market with Formula 7, a line of "functional" foods and beverages. Functional foods are foods with health benefits beyond basic nutrition. Formula 7  will include bottled and canned beverages, as well as two nutritional bars, designed  to enhance energy, fitness or endurance. The products will be fortified with vitamins, minerals, herbs, antioxidants, amino acids and other natural ingredients. The Formula 7 energy drink will come in Blood Orange and Raspberry Mint flavors and the fitness drink will come in Apple Rose and Natural Peach flavors. They've definitely chosen some intriguing flavors to try and pull off.

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