Are Clif, Kind, and Luna bars good for you?

If you ever find yourself hopelessly lost at a Whole Foods, you ’ ve probably wandered the aisles and seen a dizzy array of ready-to-eat nosh bars : Pro Bars, Clif Bars, Rx Bars, Luna Bars, Bobo ’ s Oat Bars. And the barricade phenomenon is not limited to your local upscale organic food chain : According to a holocene Outside Magazine piece, the commercialize has absolutely exploded in late years, with mainstays like Kind and Clif competing with kip brands like Larabar and Zing to rake in an estimate $ 5 billion globally .
A casual observer of the bar market may conclude that these brands seem pretty exchangeable. But nosh stripe brands range widely in terms of ingredients and their prey consumers : While companies like Clif Bar appear to be focused on catering to a more active clientele, brands like Kind appear to be catering to more of a # girlboss crowd. Kind ’ second Instagram features women with ombre hair and matte red lips sampling bars aboard matcha lattes. Yet about all of these companies position their bars as healthy items for people who care about what they put in their bodies .
“ Our tribe is knowledgeable about ingredients. They want to know precisely what they are eating, ” says Shane Emmett, the co-founder of Health Warrior, which is best known for its chia seed bars. Although Emmett declined to contribution specific sales figures, he says that Health Warrior sells millions of bars per month and has reportedly grown well since the company started selling products in wholly Foods in 2012. “ They work out four or more times a week, [ they ] are much on the become as parents, and ( for whatever glorious reason ) tend to have a pawl. ”
Dog ownership aside, it ’ mho clear that people are buying nosh bars because they think they ’ ra effective for them — but whether or not they actually are is, depending on who you ask, another fib wholly.

Why are snack bars so popular?

It may seem like entirely recently people developed a taste for six-inch hunks of dried fruit and sorghum. But outside writer Marc Peruzzi attributes the lift of bars to a issue of factors, from millennials ’ desire for more constituent and wholesome ingredients to a heightened necessitate for on-the-go meal options, which he dubs “ the snackification of the nation. ”
It seems to be true that the explosion of nosh bars has in part arise from the increasing demands of the US workplace, says Brett Klein, a dietician and co-founder of the nutrition rede and health party the Wellthy Plate .
“ There has been a boastfully increase in the number of people snacking in the last 30 years as our dietary patterns have shifted ”
“ There has been a boastfully addition in the count of people snacking in the last 30 years as our dietary patterns have shifted and the number of hours we spend at work have increased, ” Klein says. “ This has created an increase in demand for quick, easy food options and the market has exploded to meet that demand. ”
For this reason, many brands have marketed themselves as “ meal substitute ” bars, or more attractive alternatives to greasy takeout or # saddesksalads during a interfering workday .
The emergence of specialized markets like the gluten detached and vegan food product industries, adenine well as buzzy fad diets like keto and paleo, have besides been boons for the bar industry, with brands like Bulletproof ( celebrated for its keto-friendly, high-performance butter coffee ) and Epic ( which has cornered the market with its “ kernel strips, ” featuring such eminent end ingredients as Wagyu gripe and venison ) dip toes into the grocery store .
“ The gluten barren merchandise marketplace increased 140 % from 2014 to the projections for 2019, ” says Klein. “ The same can be said for keto products, which totaled $ 9 billion in 2018 and are projected to rise to over $ 12 billion in the future five years. … As fresh fad diets emerge, the bite marketplace creates products to meet the demands of these new dietary parameters. ”

Are bars healthy?

Within the nutriment and dietary community, this is a interrogate subject to some debate. For the most part, the answer appears to boil down to : It depends. “ I think there is a bit of a health ring around items like protein and bite bars, ” Klein says. “ Some protein bars are better options than others. many protein and nosh bars are full of add sugars and can be of minimal nutritional choice, while others are a good option on the crack. ”
It ’ sulfur all-important to note that good because something has health-conscious buzzwords like “ keto ” or “ low-carb ” or “ superfood ” on the pronounce does not necessarily make it healthy. “ One of the challenges of nutriment in general is we don ’ metric ton shape in nuance, ” says dietician Maya Feller. “ We give things these blanket labels like ‘ protein bars ’ or ‘ bite bars ’ or ‘ low-carb bars, ” and while these labels sound healthy at face respect, “ the ingredients absolutely matter, and we don ’ t take that into circumstance. ”
One of the most common culprits is add boodle : an oft-repeated trope is that some bite bars are “ candy bars in disguise ” due to how much added sugar they contain. indeed, Klein says you should look for a bar with less than 10 grams of sugar. ( For what it ’ s deserving, both Kind dark cocoa nut and sea salt bars and Health Warrior chia seed bars fall into this class, at five grams and three grams, respectively ; chocolate chip Clif bars, by contrast, have a whack 25 grams of boodle. )
You should besides be aware of the source of the sugar, she says : “ If it ’ second from a dried fruit, it ’ s a better choice than those with lots of add sugars from things like honey, agave, and rice syrup, ” she says .



additionally, be wary of more than 10 grams of add character. While brands often tout eminent fiber count to make their products appear more fill, many brands add ingredients such as chicory solution character, which Klein says can cause add digestive distress for some. ( Again, for what it ’ south worth, both Kind ’ s dark cocoa crackpot and sea salt bar and Health Warrior chia seed bars contain chicory root fiber. )
overall, a dependable rule of ovolo is to make certain the ingredients in the component number are both pronounceable and identifiable. While some brands use the fact that their ingredients are recognizable as a marketing strategy, Klein says there ’ s some accuracy to it being a solid nutritional litmus test. For case, if a label contains “ any ingredients that end in ‘ ol, ’ such as sorbitol, mannitol, or erythritol, ” that can be a sign that the bar may cause gastrointestinal distress, says Klein. It ’ randomness besides well if the ingredient list is short and have whole grains, yield, or nuts at the top .
And don ’ thymine be suckered in by a brand ’ randomness claims that a bar contains a trendy “ superfood, ” specially if it ’ mho ill-defined on the pronounce precisely how much of a certain ingredient is in the product. “ [ Manufacturers ] latch onto words they have health aura and are able to marketplace them to people, ” says Feller. “ They can unwittingly or wittingly latch onto consumer confusion. ”
This consumer confusion is, in separate, what motivated Health Warrior to create its signature chia source bars, as chia seeds have a reputation as a superfood packed with roughage and omega-3 fatty acid. “ We thought it was a ruse that most nutrition bars offered lots of empty calories and lacked micro-nutrients, plant-protein, and character from real number foods, ” Emmett says. “ So we insisted on chia seeds being the main ingredient in our bars. ”

The darker side of bars

The nutritional profile of protein bars aside, one of the main issues dietitians have with many brands is that they commercialize their products as meal refilling bars, or substitutes for fully and poise meals .
“ Protein bars can be a healthy and helpful food in certain scenarios, ” says Torey Jones Armul, a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. “ Their protein content can provide repletion and keep you feeling full until your following meal. Because they ’ rhenium portable and safe at room temperature, they ’ re a reasonable choice for people on-the-go or with limited access to clean foods. They ’ re besides helpful for athletes who need to replenish protein stores within a limited window of time. ”

“ For most people, I recommend choosing fresh foods over bars when potential ”
The disturb is that most people who regularly choose for protein bars — i, your average sedentary office workers looking to get in a quick breakfast or lunch between meetings — do not fall in this category. That ’ second why, “ for most people, I recommend choosing fresh foods over bars when potential, ” says Armul, simply because “ whole, fresh foods tend to be higher in fiber, healthy fats and other significant micronutrients. ”
High-protein, healthy fat-laden snacks like eggs, raw nuts, and bungalow cheese are likely a much better reservoir of nutrients than most bars on the marketplace, and will keep you fuller for longer .
Considering the fact that most people don ’ thyroxine want to offend their carrel mates by whipping out a Tupperware container full of hardboiled eggs at breakfast, protein bars are seen as a upstanding and convenient meal successor. But Feller says even higher-calorie bars likely won ’ triiodothyronine cut it as a meal successor, leaving you athirst and tidal bore to snack an hour or then belated .
And this is an emergence for those who are trying to manage their weight. “ They ’ rhenium marketed as ‘ equitable grab it and go, ’ and then many people just grab them and it ’ s a asinine activity, so they might not process they ’ ve eaten one, ” Feller says. “ An hour late, you ’ re having another meal, and you ’ ve been sitting at your desk all day. ”
While this probably international relations and security network ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate a frightful thing if it happens every once in a while, it ’ s not precisely a healthy long-run habit — and many brands lean into the percept that bars can serve as meal replacements in their marketing materials .
On its web site, for case, Health Warrior doesn ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate explicitly say that its chia bars serve as a meal substitute, but it does manipulation language to that effect, claiming that the bars “ filling you up without weighing you down ” — even though they are lone about 100 calories, well below what the average man or woman needs for, say, breakfast .
When asked whether Health Warrior believes its bars are sufficient meal replacements, Emett said, “ we don ’ metric ton market or consider our bars ‘ meal substitution ’ because they don ’ t have enough calories to count as a ‘ meal. ’ however, you get a fortune of food slam for your buck ” ; because chia seeds are nutrient-dense and an excellent source of fiber, they can “ make you feel fuller longer, ” he added .
possibly more concern, low-calorie meal replacement bars are sometimes used by those struggling with eating disorders as a way to manage their weight, largely because they are explicitly marketed as weight loss products .
“ I do have some [ eating disorder ] patients who use nosh bars in place of breakfast, and we work on it, ” says Feller. “ [ I ] have seen people who use these bars in home of food. ” ( It ’ mho possibly deserving noting that Luna bars, a subdivision of Clif bars that are marketed entirely for women, make appearances on pro-anorexia forums online. )
While brands themselves can ’ thyroxine be faulted for people using bars in less than healthy ways, the fact that some, like PROBar meal bars, are explicitly marketed as acceptable substitutes for wide meals surely raises some eyebrows in the nutrition community. “ Eating disorders start in a psychological basis, and it ’ mho more about the control condition, which I think is authoritative to be said, ” says Feller. “ It ’ sulfur about controlling your inhalation. And [ relying on these bars is ] very see. ”

The future of the bar market

As browning automatic rifle brands attract more investors and high-end celebrity spokespeople ( Kristaps Porzingis of the Knicks, for case, is the face of Zing bars ), it ’ s pass that the market is set to grow promote. Bars are besides migrating from the aisles of stores oriented toward natural foods like Whole Foods and Trader Joe ’ s into convenience stores and nosh shops countrywide, meeting millennial consumers ’ necessitate and edging out more blatantly insalubrious options like chips and cocoa bars .
“ Younger people eat differently, ” Errol Schweizer, the former frailty president of grocery for Whole Foods, told Outside. “ And whether they ’ re retail buyers or consumers, they buy consequently. ”
“ The motion is, ‘ How sick are people going to become ? ’ ”
even behemoth bite companies that aren ’ triiodothyronine typically associated with the health sector are getting into the game, as evidenced by Health Warrior ’ s holocene learning under undisclosed fiscal terms by Pepsi .
When asked about the unlikely marriage between a health food startup and a caller that is primarily known for churning out sodium carbonate and hot tall mallow snacks, Emmett said : “ We constantly wanted to spouse — at the right clock time — with a food company that could help us put nutrition within reach of more people and that ’ s one of the things PepsiCo has been working hard to do for many years. We think they ’ re our perfect partner and look forward to doing big things together. ”

While this bodes well for health food startup owners and CEOs, some nutritionists are apprehensive that it bears baleful tidings for the future of the American diet, which is skewing a lot more towards snacking and less toward unharmed, balanced meals. “ We very are a fast food nation, and bars are the ultimate answer to that, ” Feller says. “ It ’ s like, ‘ Forget the fast food place. here, have a prevention. ’ ”
And with the already stagger US fleshiness and diabetes rates lone expected to rise further, the vogue toward “ snackification ” may be causal agent for business, careless how many quote-unquote “ healthier ” bite options there are. “ When we see this uptick of nosh bars and convenience foods in certain areas, ” Feller says, “ then the wonder is : How sick are people going to become ? ”
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beginning : https://nutritionline.net
Category : Healthy