Product: Grab the Gold Chocolate Peanut Butter Protein Snack Bar – $2.49
As you know, I am always on the lookout for more and different protein bars, as I am an athlete on the go! I usually consume a protein bar on weekends away, or perhaps before a race (with time to digest, of course), and sometimes after I hit up the gym for my weights sessions.
I have my go-to brands…Lärabar, thinkThin, and KIND to name a few. All of them are certified gluten-free and carry a good portion of protein to help rejuvenate me after or before a hard workout. When I’m traveling, they also make fantastic snacks and/or food options when nothing else is available.
So, imagine my surprise and my joy when my June Cuisine Cube showed up in the mail and it included an energy bar as a mid-day pick-me-up snack option. Not just any energy bar…one that was two of my favorite things…Chocolate Peanut Butter flavored! The Cuisine Cube, as I explained before, tends to include products for breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert and a snack. And every now and again…a bonus. In June, the bonus was the energy bar. And it sounded amazing.
I had never heard of Grab the Gold before, and was quite curious as to what their version of an energy bar would be like. I’ve had some good ones in my time and some really, really bad ones. But, I have come to trust my Cuisine Cube and the choices of products that go inside. I had a run and some weights to do this morning, and my breakfast beforehand was simply cereal. Delicious cereal, but by the time I finished up at the gym, I was ready for something to eat.
I packed my roommate and I each a protein bar. She had her favorite Lärabar (ALT Lemon Pound Cake…in case you were wondering!). I decided to give the one I received in my Cuisine Cube a try. So, that was what emerged from my bag in the car to eat on the way to her family’s house to sort out some (who am I kidding…TONS) of items in the garage. I was going to need reinforcements. So, I unwrapped the gorgeous golden foil wrapper and unveiled an unassuming round bar. Little flecks of oats and chocolate chips were visible. I broke off a piece for my roomie to try and then I took a bite.
You know those amazing no-bake cookies? Yeah…that’s what this bar tasted like. A fantastic no-bake cookie. Talk about a treat! Great texture and taste too. It was chocolatey without being too candy-like. It had that nice hit of peanut butter. The oats gave it that cookie-like texture. The chocolate chips were that little burst of flavor in each bite. And the round shape made for a nice change of pace from other bars on the market.
A little bit of history…the Grab the Gold Protein Snack Bars were created by 16 year old Danielle Ontiveros, who didn’t like typical breakfast food growing up and preferred something lighter in the mornings, since she was never hungry. This was the end of the 80s and there weren’t a lot of choices for protein bars. Most were expensive and didn’t taste good, so Ontiveros told her mother she wanted to make her own bars. She pulled out items from the cupboards and began measuring, mixing, and recording what she was doing. She began to market the bars to friends, family and neighbors and soon her business was born. The reason these bars are round is that Ontiveros was concerned with fairness and equality and wanted to be sure everyone got the same size bars. Cutting them into squares never yielded uniform bars in size and thickness. Then she got the idea to weight the batter into equal parts and put them into a muffin tin. The perfect, uniform, and round bar was born.
So, now that we know how these were made and why they are so good…let’s look at the nitty-gritty stuff. Yep…nutrition and ingredients.
The Grab the Gold Chocolate Peanut Butter Protein Snack Bar is made from organic oats, peanut butter, soy nuggets (soy flour), glucose syrup, cane sugar, semisweet chocolate chips, fruit juice, brown rice dextrins, canola oil, soy lecithin, natural cocoa powder, and vanilla. This bar is gluten-free, cholesterol free, dairy free, vegan, contains no high fructose corn syrup, contains no preservatives, contains no trans fats, and is a sort of high fiber.
As fur nutrition, the Grab the Gold Chocolate Peanut Butter Snack Bar is right on par, if not better, than other bars on the market. One serving is one bar. This bar contains 193 calories and 5 grams of fat. One bar also provides73 mg sodium 345 mg potassium, and 12 grams of sugar. I admit, it is high in sugar…higher than I normally like. Might be why it tastes like a cookie. But DAMN…it’s worth it. Yum! One bar also gives you 7 grams of filling fiber and 11 grams of protein. You actually will feel full after eating this bar. Trust me!
So, Cuisine Cube sent me another winner! I hope to order some of the Grab the Gold Chocolate Peanut Butter Protein Snack Bars in the near future, if I can’t find any in local stores. As I have never seen or heard of these before now, it’s more likely I’ll be ordering online or from Cuisine Cube’s store. But…I am now completely and forever hooked on these. Like having dessert for breakfast…but one that will last you for a couple of hours.
Well done!
The Celiathlete 