Review - Bite Fuel Power Bites

Brand:  Bite Fuel

Flavor:  Power Bites Protein Cookies

Where to get it: here @ BiteFuel.com

                I’ve had some pretty good luck with protein cookies lately, so I was really interested in trying these little dudes. They’re smaller, almost like you’re eating a “real” mass-produced grocery store cookie out of the delicious rows in their cellophane packaging. Unfortunately, I hated the taste on these guys. They’re as sweet as a Quest bar, with that overwhelming weird protein powder taste and aftertaste. I suppose if you were STARVING and hadn’t had anything but bland chicken and unsalted green beans for a couple of weeks, these might hit the spot…but otherwise, take a pass.

               

Tastes like:   Protein powder and sugar alcohol

Taste rating:  2/10

Qualities:   Non-GMO, Gluten free

What’s in it:

Review - Health Warrior Chia Protein Bars

Brand:  Health Warrior

Flavor:  Chia Protein Bars

Where to get it: here @ HealthWarrior.com

                I really like chia seeds. They don’t taste like much, but I kind of love how they get stuck in my teeth and then turn just a teensy bit gummy. Don’t judge me, sometimes it’s the little things in a day that make me happy. I am really starting to dig it when companies don’t try to go overboard with their protein products. Your body can really only absorb so much protein at a time before it turns into fat like everything else, anyway.10g of protein in these bars, and all plant-based, so everyone can enjoy it. No weird protein taste like those bars that pack in 20+ grams. They are flavored, but I found the flavors to be totally mellow, just enough to keep them from tasting too plain or too savory. Grams of sugar are totally realistic as well, just 10, same as the protein. This is a great-tasting and super well-rounded bar.

               

Tastes like:   A mellow bar for everyone

Taste rating:  7/10

Qualities:   Gluten-free, vegan*, vegetarian, Kosher, Non-GMO

*The bars are labeled as 100% vegan, but the Honey Almond flavor contains organic honey, so I don’t see how that could be true in the case of that flavor. Honey does not appear to be present in the other flavors.

What’s in it:

Review - Protings

Brand:  Pro Tings

Flavor:  Sea Salt

Where to get it: here @ Protings.com

                Finally, a crisp that’s not just a potato product marketed as health food. This is a legitimately healthy alternative to potato chips. 130 calories in the 1 oz. bag, and a whopping 15 g of (vegan!) protein. To me, the taste was just alright though. The chips are extremely brittle, leaving very few intact chips in the bag, and many, many tiny pieces. Additionally, the picture on the cover looks nothing like the actual product. The cover looks like pita chips. The actual chips are darker brown, studded with flax seeds, and kind of curled up around the edge. As I mentioned before, they’re really brittle, but kind of sog up in your mouth quickly. I think these are probably best eaten with a yogurt dip or pico de gallo of some kind, rather than straight from the bag.

               

Tastes like:  Brittle bean board

Taste rating:  5/10

Qualities:  Gluten-free, Non-GMO, Kosher, Vegetarian, Vegan, Made in the USA

What’s in it:

Review - Come Ready Cake Batter Bar

Brand:  Come Ready

Flavor:  Cake Batter

Where to get it: here @ SupplementsGeeks.com

                What’s going on? Another bro-bar that I had to MAKE myself stop eating! I will try anything that has the word “cake” in it. Alcohol, snack bars, actual cake…it’s my kryptonite. I’m not sure how much like actual cake batter this bar tastes, but it does have a pleasant vanilla flavor, and I didn’t get that nasty sugar alcohol flavor one bit! The wrapper stresses that it has “NO aftertaste,” and I found this to actually be true. As always, be careful – the whole bar is 320 calories, so if you’re on a weight-loss workout plan, this is not a snack that you would want to eat casually. I would actually, miraculously, DEFINITELY buy this bar again.       

                 

               

Tastes like:  A sweet vanilla protein shake

Taste rating:  8/10

What’s in it:

Review - Harry P. Fitness Muscle Pasta

Brand:  Harry P. Fitness

Flavor:  Muscle Pasta – Spinach Edition

Where to get it: here @ VitaCost.com

                I can honestly say that I would be fine to never eat traditional noodles again. After falling in love with the Explore Asia Mung Bean Noodles, I was pretty set. After trying these little corkscrew protein noodles, I feel like I’m REALLY set. They’re less squishy/elastic than traditional noodles, but other than that there is really no difference. I ate these Asian-style with cabbage & mushrooms for my weekly lunch meal prep, and made a tuna pasta salad with the rest of them. They were great both ways. One serving has 33g of carbs but ALSO 30g of protein. Noodles are now a healthy food!

               

Tastes like:  Really al dente noodles

Taste rating:  9/10

Qualities:  All Natural

What’s in it:   

Review - Chicken Nacho Meat Chips

Brand:  Meat Chips

Flavor:  Chicken Nacho

Where to get it: here @ MeatChips.com

                                                                                                                                                      

                “Meat Chips,” well, that’s certainly an attention-grabbing name! I didn’t know if they would be jerky, tortilla chips, or some weird freeze-dried experience. Turns out, they taste pretty much like your standard tortilla chip with some seasoning on them. Not exactly like a true tortilla chip, but I’d say maybe 85% like them. I ate them plain, but you could totally bust into these with some salsa and be pretty dang happy, I’d say. I’ve had a lot of protein chips, and they have pretty much all had varying degrees of weirditude. Not these. No weird texture, no bizarre aftertaste, no sticking-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth…kaplech!

                As far as I can tell, the chicken is ground with the corn in the chip making process, which I am sure is essential to making it not ultra-weird, like it sounds like it might be. The nutritionals on these might scare you off – 380 calories, 17g fat, and 31g carbs – but I did find that they didn’t spike my blood sugar AT ALL, which I was not expecting.. I checked it about an hour after eating them, on a day I DID NOT go to the gym, and it was cruising along at a very pleasant 99.Plus, they have 21g of protein in the same parameters as the other stats, which is really killer. If you’re going to eat tortilla chips, you’re going to get all that fat and calorie content anyway; you might as well get a massive dose of protein while you’re at it.

                These are going on my short list of snacks that I’ll continue to eat even though I’ve already reviewed them.

                 

               

Tastes like:  Lightly seasoned tortilla chips

Taste rating:  9/10

Qualities:  Gluten free, Made in the USA

What’s in it:

Review - Boundless Nutrition Perfect Cookie

Brand:  Boundless Nutrition

Flavor:  Perfect Cookie, Chocolate Chip

Where to get it: here @ VitaCost.com

                Protein cookies are just ALL the rage lately. To the uneducated, a lot of these cookies seem to be beckoning with a promise of cookie taste, but muscle-building protein shake nutrition. While they all definitely have more protein in them than a standard cookie, they should all be carefully evaluated for other nutritional factors as well, lest we fall into the trap of lying to ourselves. Oh and also, some of them just taste like absolute crap.

                The reason I really like these Perfect Cookie cookies is twofold. One:  they taste delicious. Not too much chocolate, not too much protein…honestly the taste is really just like eating a blob of delicious chocolate chip cookie dough. Who doesn’t love that?

                The second reason I really liked this cookie is because it’s small. Most of the other protein cookies I’ve tried seem to be obsessed with cramming 25g+ protein into them, which typically leads to a huge, gut busting 300+ calorie cookie that makes me feel super blah. These little guys are perfectly wonderful with just 10g of protein in them, and 150 calories – making them a snack, not a meal. They also donate a portion of their sales to cancer research. Can’t beat that, on any level.

               

Tastes like:   Cookie dough

Taste rating:  10/10

Qualities:   Gluten-free, Made in the USA, Non-GMO, All natural

What’s in it

Review - Hemp Pro Protein Powder

Brand:  Manitoba Harvest

Flavor:  Hemp Pro Chocolate Protein Powder

Where to get it: here @ VitaCost.com

                I mixed this powder with unsweetened vanilla almond milk and blended it up with a few ice cubes. It has 7g of sugar in it, so I didn’t add any Splenda…big mistake. This mix is really, really bitter. It probably needs a banana or some berries, as well as some of your favorite no- or low-calorie sweetener, just to make it palatable. These guys could just save the money they are spending on the organic coconut sugar, because it’s not making this protein power even a little bit sweet.

               

Tastes like:  Bitter sadness

Taste rating:  1/10

Qualities:   Vegetarian, vegan, organic

What’s in it:

Review - Caveman Primal Bar

Brand:  Caveman

Flavor:  Chicken Sweet Cherry Primal Bar

Where to get it: here @ CavemanFoods.com

                This bar tasted like I expected, but the texture was much different. I thought this would be tough like jerky, but it really isn’t. It’s kind of like a little meatloaf bar! Tender, a little smoky, a little sweet, and I found the color and packaging to be really appealing, which I think is especially important in a meat-based snack. You can definitely tell the meat is chicken; no other meat lends itself so well to a smoky flavor, in my opinion. At 150 calories and 18g of protein, as well as being made from a whole bunch of ingredients you probably have in your kitchen right now, there’s really no downside at all to this snack.

               

Tastes like:  Sweet, smoked jerky without all the tooth work

Taste rating:  8/10

Review - Cracked Nut Butter

Brand:  Cracked Nut Butter

Flavor:  Brownie Batter & White Chocolate Raspberry

Where to get it: here @ VitaCost.com or here @ CrackedNutButter.com (Different things are available on each site.)

                How many protein products have you had that claim to be “Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough” or “Cake Batter”? I know I’ve tried scores. And how many have even come close to tasting like dough or batter? For me, pretty much none.

                Until now.

                Holy crap.

                This is happening.

                What we have here, is Cracked Nut Butter in raw confectionary flavors, spiked with protein. Actually, they have more grams of protein than sugar, but you’d never know it. The Brownie Batter seriously tastes like actual brownie batter. The little sucky pouches are DANGEROUS, because I find myself just mindlessly, joyfully sitting at my computer, sucking on them like they’re 70-calorie applesauce packs. They definitely aren’t that, but they really aren’t terribly nefarious, especially for how stinkin’ delicious they are.

               

                Great before working out, great after working out, great for a before-bedtime treat…these are just incredible.

               

Tastes like:  Batter and dough and %$!@*! heaven

Taste rating:  10/10

Qualities:  Gluten free

What’s in it:

Review - Chef's Cut Buffalo Style Chicken Jerky

Brand:  Chef’s Cut

Flavor:  Buffalo Style Chicken Jerky

Where to get it: here @ ChefsCutRealJerky.com

                This review is going to be very short and simple. Do you like hot wings? Then you’ll like this jerky from Chef’s Cut. Boom, end of story. You can even eat it at your desk, in your bed, and in the car without making a mess or getting in trouble.

At 70 calories (1g fat, 2g carbs, and a whopping 12g protein) per ounce, this snack is damn near perfect.

               

Tastes like:  BUFFALO CHICKEN WINGS!!!!!!11!!!1!1!!!!

Taste rating:  10/10

Qualities:  Gluten free, Made in the USA

What’s in it:

Review - FitMiss Vanilla Chai Protein Shake

Brand:  FitMiss

Flavor:  Vanilla Chai Protein Shake

Where to get it: here @ FitMiss.com

                I’m always leery about trying a new protein powder, especially when it’s one that I’m going to review, because I always try to drink them “clean” – just powder and unsweetened almond milk. Even my favorite protein powder really benefits from some PB2 and Splenda most of the time, or at least a banana, but this one really doesn’t need anything added to it. I didn’t get a strong, spicy chai flavor from this, but it was still really tasty. It had a great, true vanilla taste, and at 90 calories and 3 grams of carbs, you can pretty much have one of these whenever you want, even a couple times a day. If your tummy is good with whey protein, FitMiss is definitely a great option.

               

Tastes like:  A sweet vanilla shake

Taste rating:  9/10

Qualities:  Gluten free

What’s in it:

Review - TwinLab Vegan Protein Powder

Brand:  TwinLab

Flavor:  Cleanseries Very Vanilla Vegan Protein

Where to get it: here @ VitaCost.com

                 When I have a protein power to review, I always mix the powder with unsweetened vanilla almond milk and a couple of ice cubes. There are very, very few that taste good this way, but at least then I can tell from that baseline whether I need to add Splenda, a banana, PB2, or something else. Every once in a while, I get one that cannot be saved. No mango, nor banana, nor peanut butter, nor berry can save this protein powder. It’s SO sweet, like, that artificially sweet KAPOW! sweet. What would happen to it if you actually put something sweet-ish in it? I feel like my face would just cave in upon itself.

               

Tastes like:  Turbo sweet vanilla bad times

Taste rating:  2/10

Qualities:  Vegetarian, Vegan, non-GMO, Gluten free

What’s in it:

Review - Supreme Protein Bar

Brand:  Supreme Protein

Flavor:  Apple Cinnamon Morning Protein Bar

Where to get it: here @ BodyBuilding.com

                Well hello, adorable little oats stapled all over the top of this bar! I like you. You make me feel like I’m eating a bar where some of the ingredients might actually exist outside of a lab. This is a great little bar, especially if you eat it for breakfast, as the package recommends. 180 calories is very reasonable, and the apple cinnamon taste is pretty good. Additionally, you get 15g of protein. If you’re a person who eats Nutrigrain bars or any kind of granola bars with your breakfast, you should definitely try this and get a little extra protein for your buck.

                 

               

Tastes like:  Just shy of natural apple cinnamon (I’ll take it though)

Taste rating:  6.5/10

Qualities:  Gluten-free, Made in the USA

What’s in it:

Review - Metragenix White Crispy Crunch Protein Bar

Brand:  Metragenix

Flavor:  White Crispy Crunch

Where to get it: here @ 2to1proteinbars,com

                The little white “crunch balls” on the outside of this bar don’t only make it interesting, they are also completely delicious. I have no idea what they’re made out of…I wonder if they have any nutritional value at all. Say…could I get a snack bag of just the crunchy balls? And if I did…would it just be full of empty calories? I could die wondering, because I feel like that’s not a real thing that’s about to come into my life. The interior of the bar is really just another so-so tasting protein bar, but the composition does make it interesting. If you’re looking for something a little different and you’re a fan of protein bars, this one is worth trying.               

                 

               

Tastes like:  Vanilla cereal, then bland protein powder

Taste rating:  6/10

Qualities:  Made in the USA

What’s in it:

Review - Bounce Natural Energy Ball

Brand:  Bounce  

Flavor:  Coconut & Macadamia

Where to get it: here @ Rei.com

                These smell absolutely divine right out of the package. The light tan color, covered in coconut, is also really appealing. They have a really strong protein powder taste though, and it cuts through the coconut flavor pretty quickly once you start chewing. I didn’t taste the cranberry at all, which is just fine since I don’t particularly like them, but that protein powder taste was just too strong for me to get this whole thing down. Unfortunately, they also have more grams of sugar (9) than protein (8), which is a letdown to me anytime a product specifically advertises itself as a protein product. On the plus side, that sugar does come from agave and fruit, not refined sugar.

                 

               

Tastes like:  Protein powder covered in coconut

Taste rating:  5/10

Qualities:  All natural, Gluten free, Non-GMO

What’s in it:

Review - Think Thin White Chocolate

Brand:  Think Thin

Flavor:  White Chocolate High Protein Bar

Where to get it:  here @ ThinkProducts.com

                0 g of sugar? Yay! 240 calories? Less yay. Tastes nothing like white chocolate? Booooooo. And when I say nothing like white chocolate, I mean that this bar tastes about as much like white chocolate as green beans do. I am not exaggerating. So there’s that disappointment, but what DOES it taste like? I actually sampled this with 3 of my co-workers, and the most complementary thing that was said was, “it tastes like a boring candy bar.” I’m not really on board with the candy bar comment, because that makes it sound like it tastes really good, and…it doesn’t.

                 

Tastes like:  The makers have never tasted white chocolate

Taste rating:  2/10

Qualities:  Gluten free, Kosher, Made in the USA

What’s in it

Review - Promax Lemon Bar

Brand:  Promax

Flavor:  Lemon Bar

Where to get it:  here @ ProMaxNutrition.com

                                Mmmmm lemon. Give it to me! First bite, lemon! Chew chew chew, hmmmm, I’m no longer certain I want to eat another bite. It wasn’t the worst bar that I’ve tried, for sure. There was something about it though. That first taste is so good then it morphs into something else that really isn’t identifiable as a familiar flavor. That concerns me a little bit. Maybe it’s just the protein isolate blend that Pro Max is using. I’m sure it’s nothing nefarious, but I wouldn’t choose this bar a second time.

Tastes like:   Lemon at first, then…chemicals?

Taste rating:  5/10

Qualities:   Gluten-free, vegetarian, Kosher

What’s in it:

Review - Bricks Turkey Bar

Brand:  Bricks

Flavor:  Turkey Sweet Potato Cranberry & Pumpkin Seed Bar

Where to get it: here @ BricksBars.com

                 Well, at least I will never accuse Bricks of false advertising. Just about everything they put into this bar makes it onto the front wrapper in the form of the name. The pumpkin seeds are more for texture, I am assuming. I think the name, being filled with all these nice holiday ingredients, can lead you to think there might be a pumpkin taste to this bar, and there isn’t.  It’s very true to turkey flavor though, and the black pepper is a force, but not an altogether unpleasant one. It’s a funky bar, and also safe to share with your pooch, which is pretty cool.

                 

Tastes like:  TV dinner turkey with pepper gravy

Taste rating:  5/10

Qualities:  Gluten-free

What’s in it:

Review - Fuel For Fire

Brand:  Fuel For Fire

Flavor:  Triple Berry

Where to get it:  here @ FuelForFire.com 

                This is the best pre-workout squeezer on the market, at least as far as the ones I have tried. Low calories, great taste, and loads of protein (10g!) make this product a staple for me on workout days. The texture is nice and smooth, so you can really pound one of these if you were so inclined…and I have been so inclined during a sugar dip in the middle of a workout. I recommend putting them in the fridge, they are really yummy cold. I have the other 3 flavors (Tropical, Sweet Potato Apple, and Banana Cocoa) on order right now. If you work out AT ALL in any manner, these will give you that initial burst of energy when you’re struggling to get into the zone, right before the endorphins kick in. I highly recommend them.         

Tastes like:  A thick, fruity pudding

Taste rating:  10/10

Qualities:  Gluten free, vegetarian

What’s in it: