Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Review: CLIF Spiced Pumpkin Pie Energy Bar


It's nearly Thanksgiving and in honor of that, it's time for a review of a Thanksgiving themed treat.  As I've mentioned here before, CLIF Bar releases specialty seasonal holiday flavors of their original energy bars every year.  I've already covered the Peppermint Stick bar here at the blog already, so now it's time for their other special holiday offering, the Spiced Pumpkin Pie bar.  This one weighs in at the standard CLIF bar weight of 2.4 ounces contains 240 calories with nine grams of protein.  I picked this one up at Kroger on sale for a virtual giveaway price of $0.50.




As you can tell, this one looks a lot like your standard CLIF Bar that I've reviewed here before.  It's made of the standard CLIF Pro energy mix consisting of oats, rice crisps, etc. except that it is slightly orange-ish in color due to the inclusion of pumpkin and is topped with a swirl of white icing.  Also in the bar mix, although not standard pumpkin pie ingredients, is apples, raisins, dates and almonds.  The almond pieces are quite large and imagine that is to add a crunch texture to signify a pumpkin pie crust and also to offset the soft, chewy texture of the normal CLIF Pro energy mix.

As for the taste, well, it's not quite a spiced pumpkin pie, but it is a semi-reasonable facsimile.  The pumpkin flavoring is inoffensive and sweet like a real pie, although it does have a strong tastes of dates and raisins.  And, as any regular pumpkin pie eater knows, those two flavors are not usual things that you find in your garden variety pumpkin pie.  That said, it's inoffensive enough and it works well with the pumpkin flavoring.  The almonds also add a nice crunch to the mix that ALMOST give you the impression that you have a crust with this.  One thing that doesn't deliver on this bar though is the "spiced" component.  There is a definite taste of cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger in here, but it is very faint.  I don't really like spicy pumpkin pies, so I find this appealing, but if you do like spicy pumpkin pies, you are really going to miss that flavor component when eating this bar.

Buy It or Fly By It?  I would say to BUY IT.  It's not the world's greatest bar, but it is tasty enough.  If you are craving pumpkin pie or just like pumpkin flavored food in general, this bar could almost fool you, but it would probably cure your fix in the short term and that's not a bad thing.  Better hurry though, because this one will probably come off the shelves of your local store soon (that's probably why it was on sale for $0.50 at my local Kroger...they are trying to get rid of the inventory).

BUY IT!!

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