Review: Balance Bar Honey Peanut Bar

In the endless quest for protein and to try as many of these protein/nutrition/energy bars as I can find, I'm led to Balance Bar.  Judging by its name, Balance Bar considers itself very balanced.  They push this point even harder by putting a nice fly wheel on the label (that's it on the left) that shows all of the nutritional benefits of these bar.  Nutritional benefits, charts and graphs...I'm in!  I picked several of these up, but we'll start with the Honey Peanut flavor of this bar.  I picked this one up at Meijer for $1.09.  It clocks in at 1.76 ounces and contains 200 calories with 15 grams of protein.  Basically, it's similar to Pure Protein bars in its calorie and protein counts, although slightly less in each.

As you can see from the picture, this bar looks no different than your typical protein bar.  The exterior is coated in chocolate and the interior consists of a mix that mildly resembles a hardened peanut butter.  Being that peanuts and honey comprise this texture, the fact that it look like peanut butter should not be surprising. That said, although the picture doesn't accurately convey it, the inside is a little gummy.  Again, this is like a typical protein/nutrition bar, so this should be surprising either.

In terms of taste, it's about what you'd expect.  Peanuts and honey are a wonderful combination and you can definitely distinguish the taste of the two in this one.  The peanut flavoring is similar to the hearty flavoring of peanut butter and the honey flavoring adds a nice sweet cap to it.  The chocolate, while not overpowering, is definitely noticeable.  It's semi-sweet, but not too sweet and works well with the general sweetness of the bar.  If I had to marry three flavors together in a bigamist marriage, these three would be prime candidates to do so.  All three nicely play to each others strengths and you get a tasty bar here.

Buy It or Fly By It?  There's nothing world shattering about this bar, but I would still say to BUY IT.  Sometimes it's just "nice" to have comfortable flavor pairings to make something taste good even though it's not going to re-define your life and that's what this Balance Bar is doing.  It's like the porridge with the three bears...this one is just right.

BUY IT!!