Being a penny pinching, grocery store addict, one of the highlights of my week is when the mail comes on Thursday. In that day's mail are the weekly ads for all my grocery stores and each week, I inevitable tear them opening looking for ways to "beat" the system. This week, my local Kroger (where these products are available exclusively at this point) was pushing several products from Simple Truth and that led me to pick up this Simple Truth Peanut Butter Extreme Protein Bar on sale for $0.79 to review on the blog since I'd never had one before. It comes in at 1.76 ounces, 210 calories and being that it is a protein bar, it also has 21 grams of protein.
As you can see from the wrapper, this one really is peanut butter extreme as the outside of the bar is covered in a thick layer of peanut butter that also has that strong peanut butter smell. Sometimes peanut butter smells sweet, but that was not the case of this bar as it was more of a "hearty" smell, so to speak. It was also quite oily, which was kind of weird. The interior of the bar was then made up of the protein blend of peanut butter, various proteins, etc. All in all, it was quite a dense bar and since there were no noticeable add-ins, I'll just move on.
After my first bite, I clearly tasted peanut butter. Well, sort of. This was a peanut butter that I'd never had before in that it had a weird, mildly offensive aftertaste that reminded me of some of the chemically strong bars that I've reviewed on this blog. Not appetizing at all. For a bar that was so dense, it really had no crunch either as the interior broke up quickly and provided for a soft chew. The exterior peanut butter coating also melted quickly, which was quite bizarre as anyone who has ever had peanut butter knows, peanut butter does not exactly melt. Outside of that faint introduction of peanut butter that faded into an unappetizing aftertaste that lingered in my mouth, there was no other flavor that I could detect.
Buy It or Fly By It? I could only finish about two-thirds of this before I decided I'd had enough torture and tossed it in the trash can, so it gets a FLY BY IT rating. This bar was extreme alright, but not in a good way. It was extremely not good. Not the worst bar I've ever had and may I shouldn't have expected a lot from a bar that only had peanut butter, but this bar was completely lacking. I've got another one of these Simple Truth bars that I picked up and frankly, I'm now scared to eat it. Uh-oh.
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| FLY BY IT!! |
Other active people prefer bars while I prefer the blended powder from pre workout supplements. It is a personal preference and I do like the vanilla form.
ReplyDeletehaven't tried those one's yet but a big fan of the simply bar - http://cookingquidnunc.blogspot.ca/2012/12/the-simply-bar.html
ReplyDeleteI just ate a Simple Truth Double Chocolate Protein Bar. It was the most disgusting bar I've EVER had. I couldn't wait to not have it in my mouth anymore. It honestly tastes like anise, chocolate and what I imagine shit must taste like. So, so, so foul.
ReplyDeleteive eaten thse bars before. and yeah they have a weird hard-to-deal-with after taste, but you get used to it. but upon reading this review. i did a little fact finding, and the reason it "melted" was because it is made with various oils. now that chemically taste is from all the isolates found in it. so yes it has lots of protein but is it really worth how cheap it is? i can say i probably wont be buying these again.
ReplyDeleteTheir peanut butter bar is a bit dry for my taste, but the double chocolate bar tastes much better and has 21g protein with only 190 cal.
ReplyDeleteI've enjoyed these bars since they first became available. Not mentioned is that these bars are among the lowest in sugar content without resorting to artificial sweeteners--just 6-7 gr. Most bars run 15-20 gr. or more. I've never seen any of the bars melt in any way--perhaps that may have to do with the region (I live in the Pacific NW). In my opinion the Extreme Protein bars are among the best values around in a nutrition bar.
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