Review: LUNA Fiber Vanilla Blueberry Bar

I've had some really good experiences with LUNA Fiber bars so far, although those past experience have included chocolate as one of the ingredients, so it they had a leg up solely because of that.  Stepping outside of that realm for the first time, it's time to review the LUNA Fiber Vanilla Blueberry Bar that I picked up on the same shopping trip as the others at Kroger for $1.00.  Also like the others, this one weighs in at 1.41 ounces.  It's 110 calories, has a lonely gram of protein and naturally, since it's a Fiber bar, has a solid seven grams of fiber.

As with the others, this one is soft-baked and fruit-filled, so it's pretty much like your standard cereal bar with the noticeable exception that it has a dusting of sugar crystals on the top (just like the others).  The one difference with this bar though was that the bottom of the bar had a dusting of oat and grain pieces adhered to it, so that was definitely new.  The bar was filled with it's typical fruit filling and since this was blueberry, it had that natural blue/purple hue that everyone has pretty much become accustomed to in any sort of blueberry flavored bar.  When I took a whiff of this prior to biting in, I was quite shocked by the potency of the vanilla.  I'm more than fine with vanilla, but I can't say that I've ever smelled vanilla that strongly, especially in a cereal bar.  The blueberries were also represented in the smell, but it was very faint.  I'm not sure if that was because the blueberry smell was faint on its own or because the vanilla overpowered it.  Regardless, both namesake ingredients were represented and that's always a good start.

That vanilla smell carried over into the flavor of the bar as well as it definitely was the prominent flavor in this bar.  As I would have expected, based on prior experience, the bar was soft and chewy and all flavor was punctuated with that sweet sugar taste (due to the top dusting), so nothing there was new.  The vanilla flavor was so strong though that it made this almost a weird tasting product.  If I had to put a number on it, I would say 85% of the flavor of this bar was taken up by vanilla that then had a blueberry aftertaste (10%) followed by every other component bunched together in the remaining 5%.  If you can't tell, I've worked in jobs related to finance most of my life, so assigning percentages to me is second nature...yes, I'm a dork.  The blueberry flavor was mildly sweet and also mildly tangy, but I think it mostly got lost in the vanilla.

Buy It or Fly By It?  As I said, that strong vanilla flavor made this weird, but it was still appetizing and because of that, it gets a BUY IT rating.  This bar is definitely unique and may require some sort of palate adjustment, but if you are willing to make that adjustment and/or explore something new, give this bar a shot and I think you might enjoy it.

BUY IT!!