Review: Nature Valley Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Granola Thins

I've been hit by a mad flurry of Nature Valley product recently for some reason, so adding to my already expansive review collection is another one of those reviews as I take a look at this Nature Valley Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Granola Thins single bar.  I got this during the hilarious snack time at work, but having bought these at the store before, I know that they ordinarily come in a box of ten for around $3.00 to $4.00.  Each Granola Thin is 0.6 ounces, 80 calories and has a barely perceptible one gram of protein.

Having tested one of these Granola Thins out before, I was pretty sure what I was going to be getting going in.  It is a square bar measuring about two inches on each side and it's quite thin, as the name would imply.  The bar has a base layer of dark chocolate that lacked any sort of smell that is then topped with a layer of flaky and loose granola that is bound together by peanut butter and honey.  The granola itself has a strong smell of peanut butter, so at least one of the promised flavors is present in the smell of this bar.

Biting into this, it fell apart quite quickly and left a bunch of granola crumbs scattered everywhere.  Because it is so small, this might be one of these bars that you just swallow whole like a snake would it's prey so that you don't end up making a mess all over the front of your shirt.  As for the taste, the peanut butter taste has a thick and hearty texture that leans more toward the salty version of peanut butter.  Sweetening that up a bit is a faint hint of honey that works quite well with the peanut butter and brings some additional sweetness to the flat tasting dark chocolate.  The dark chocolate's only purpose, it would seem, was to provide a coating for the bar, because it certainly did not bring any flavor.  Of course, dark chocolate rarely does, so I guess that should be expected.

Buy It or Fly By It?  There's nothing wrong with this bar and the peanut butter and honey flavor work nicely together, so this gets a BUY IT rating.  While the dark chocolate didn't bring a whole lot to the table, the fact that it coated the flaky granola mixture made for an interesting textural difference in the bar.  That said, I do wish it was sweet chocolate that they used, but it's still okay as it is with the dark chocolate.  One more gripe:  I wish this bar was bigger because it's quite easy to eat multiples of these in one sitting due to the fact that are simultaneously tasty and small/unfilling.

BUY IT!!