I've eaten two Zone, Balance, or Luna bars a day, five days a week, for
the last four years. I eat those brands because they taste good. They taste good because they have real food in them
- rice, oats, SUGAR, yogurt, soy protein, cocoa powder. I've tried all the low-carb, mega-protein ones. I used to work at
GNC to support my supplement habit and I eventually ate my way through every single bar that we stocked. Most
of them are really vile, like silly putty dipped in motor oil. I always read the labels while eating and I'll
never forget reading the words "bovine serum" on a Meso-Tech bar. What it GOD'S name is bovine serum??? Cow juice?? Shudder.
:-)
There's no simple answer on bars. Plenty of people choke down the gross
ones because the nutrition stats are good. I'm not willing to do that. I don't see any reason to do that. If I were planning
to step onstage in a bodybuilding contest, my sugary bars would have to go. So would fruit and dairy,
and bread, and potatoes. See what I mean? Where you draw the line depends on what your goals are and what kind of results
you're getting. It's a really individual thing. That's why everybody gives you a different answer.
I look for bars close to a 40/30/30 ratio of protein carbs and
fat. If I'm looking at labels, I look for 10-20g of protein, no more than 30g of carbs (maybe 15g of which is sugar),
and enough fat that I'm not going to be starving 5 minutes later. They're usually about 200 calories. I avoid anything that
says low-carb on it, and I avoid anything that's insanely unbalanced (like energy bars with 57g of carbs and 4g of protein).
