Review: Nature Valley Crunchy Apple Crisp Granola Bars

For the most part, Nature Valley granola products are very simple.  They take their standard granola mix, add in a few different flavor components and call it a day.  Some might think that makes their products all the same, but there are subtle differences and that's why I do reviews on them, which leads me to this review of the Nature Valley Crunchy Apple Crisp Granola Bars.  I picked up a box of these for $2.99 on sale at Meijer and each box contains six packs of bars, in which there are two bars per pack.  Each pack is 1.5 ounces, 160 calories and has three grams of protein and sixteen grams of whole grain, so you can do the math to figure out the specifics per each individual bar if you are so inclined.

I mentioned that each of these Nature Valley products are nearly the same and are very simple and that is clearly the case with these bars.  As you can see, it's just Nature Valley's standard granola mix made of oats, barley, etc. with some additional flavor components added in.  In this case the flavor components are primarily apples and cinnamon and these bars smell strongly of both flavors.  Apples and cinnamon are a wonderful flavor combination, so that strong scent of those flavors was certainly welcome in my mind.  There are dried apple components hidden within the granola mix, but the are difficult to see in the picture and to the naked eye since the granola mix is so dense.  One thing, like all of these Nature Valley bars, is that they are very brittle and crumble easily, so if you are not expecting to make a mess, you are in for a fun surprise once you take these out of the wrapper.

The tagline of this bar is crunchy and that was definitely the case as I bit into this.  For a bar that is so brittle when you hold it, it sure packs a ton of crunch when you bite into it.  Having had these bars before, I didn't find that to be particularly surprising.  One thing that was surprising was that the strong scents of apple and cinnamon very much dissipated when it came to the flavor.  Those flavors were present, but they clearly were a very weak aftertaste to the star of the show, which was the granola.  If I had to assign percentages to the way that the flavor of this bar broke out, I'd say 85% granola and 15% everything else.  That's fine since Nature Valley's granola is so flavorful, but is a mild disappointment for those expecting an apple and cinnamon crunchy treat.

Buy It or Fly By It?  Despite the fact that the apples and cinnamon did not quite deliver like I had hoped, the fact that the granola is so tasty (and I love granola) give this a BUY IT rating.  The granola in this is one of those things were it seems like it was homemade just a couple hours before, so it really is a tree-huggers delight in terms.  Obviously it's manufactured and was probably made weeks before, but Nature Valley does a good job delivering a solidly flavored product here that is worth a try.

BUY IT!!