Thursday, August 23, 2012

Review: LUNA Lemon Zest Nutrition Bar


I was in The Dollar Tree recently buying my energy shots that I take on a daily basis and while standing in the checkout line, a pile of LUNA bars caught my eye.  I figured that it had been a while since I had either eaten or reviewed a LUNA bar for the blog, so I went ahead and grabbed this Lemon Zest bar and now we all get the pleasure of my review!  Like I said, I got this at The Dollar Tree, so it was obviously $1.00.  The rest of the pertinent stats on the bar include a weight of 1.69 ounces, 180 calories and nine grams of protein.  Being that LUNA is made by CLIF, this one also focuses on being primarily organic, so it's 70% organic as well.



I've got to admit that I was moderately surprised when I unwrapped this bar.  I did not expect so much yogurt icing to be on the bottom of the bar.  In fact, I guess I just expect the bar to be primarily a rice crisp mix, but when I saw the icing, I was pleasantly surprised although I probably shouldn't have been since all LUNA bars look that way.  The icing and bar itself was pretty basic though with the icing base layer and then the rice crisp on top.  It did have a strong lemon smell to it though, so obviously it did a good job conveying its name.  One thing I will note is that the ingredients said there would be lemon bits in the bar and while I've had Lasik surgery and consider my eyes to be pretty darn good, I didn't see any sort of lemon bits anywhere.  Maybe I need to go back for surgery, but then again, maybe I don't and there weren't any bits actually in the bar.

Biting into the bar, the rice crisp mix was chewy and added a nice texture component to the bar as I chewed through it.  The lemon flavoring behaved a bit oddly to say the least though.  As I first bit in, I didn't really taste any lemon at all.  As I chewed through my bite though, the lemon came on in a powerful and "zesty" way and eventually became somewhat overpowering.  You could definitely tell it was lemon and it had a lot of that tartness and bite that you'd get from your garden variety fresh lemon.  That said, while the flavor was spot on, it was a bit much and actually started to make me nauseous because I was so overcome by it.  I will point out that I have a strong like for lemons and lemon flavored drinks, so being overpowered by that flavor was a bit of a revelation for me and I was only able to finish about a third of the bar before I put it back in the wrapper and threw it in the trash.  Just too much.  As for the yogurt icing, well, it wasn't really cooling and didn't really add anything to the taste other than what seemed like additional lemon flavor and this bar definitely did not need that.

Buy It or Fly By It?  Any time a bar meets the trash can before it is done and it's not because the bar was just too large, you know it is going to get a FLY BY IT rating.  If you've got a lemon craving or want to play chicken with how much lemon you can actually tolerate, go ahead and try out this bar.  If you are a normal person though, I'm guessing you probably are  not going to like this because it is sort of gross.

FLY BY IT!!
Buy LUNA Lemon Zest Nutrition Bars at Amazon.com

3 comments:

  1. A Luna bar isn't for the "taste" like any other candy bar, as its not a candy bar, its a health bar packed in nutrients, not sugar...

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  2. I actually love the lemon punch in this bar. And would further suggest they cut out some sugar and it would still be sweet enough!

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  3. I recently call in love with these bars. Not sure if they have changed them since this review was made but I love the lemon zest bars!! I love lemon sweets and they taste like Girl scout lemon cookies!!

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