Posted by Good Health Coach Do you use energy bars to address that “always tired” feeling?
So we’ve discussed energy drinks. We’ve dug into the energy patches. Now, we’re going to look at those energy bars that claim to give us that boost we need. I looked at three major brands of energy bars for this post; Power Bars, Luna Bars, and Zone Perfect bars. I was amazed at what I found. These bars were so full of sugar I found it hard to believe they were allowed to market it as health food. Those pesky marketing people have really done it with these babies.
First I grabbed a box of Power Bars. These are used by many athletes and other people that are constantly on the go. They claim to give you energy and protein to keep your muscles going, what they don’t tell you is that energy is sugar-based. To be fair, I avoided the chocolate flavors because I knew those would be packed with sugar. I grabbed a box of Power Bar Fruit and Nut. The top ingredient was nuts, which was fine, but then it went to brown rice syrup.
Psst….brown rice syrup is just another type of sugar. Three cheers for those marketing guys again…yeah, right!
I kept reading the label and, sure enough, there was evaporated cane juice. In case you weren’t aware, that’s sugar. This bar also contains milk, which makes it even more undesirable.
I thought, “Luna Bars! They’re made for women, they’ve got to be good.” I could not have been more wrong. They’re mostly made of toasted oats that are made with cane juice, more sugar. You know the toasted oat and rice cereals that kids eat, it’s the same thing. There’s nothing healthy about kids’ cereals. If you keep reading the Luna label there’s more cane juice and brown rice syrup. So Luna depends on sugar for their energy, too.
The last one I took a look at was Zone Perfect. This was so bad I wanted to scream in the grocery store aisle. Corn syrup was the number two ingredient. We all know that just means sugar. Then, to make matters worse, that actual word “sugar” was listed 4 times on the list of ingredients, followed by glucose syrup and fructose. Can we say sugar overload?
So, now we know. Energy bars are just a fancy word for sugar bar. What’s the point of having all these healthy and organic ingredients if you’re just going to wrap them up in sugar? You would almost be better off eating a candy bar.
Just one more artificial energy inducer to go (you probably use this one!) and then we’ll talk about how you can boost your energy the natural and safe way!
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