Friday, November 8, 2013

Review: Nature Valley Greek Yogurt Mixed Berry Protein Bars


Mega monster producer General Mills keeps churning them out, eh?  This time, they've added to their already expansive product review catalog with an attempt at the Greek yogurt crazy (in bar form) with this box of Nature Valley Greek Yogurt Mixed Berry Protein Bars that I picked up on sale at Kroger for $2.50.  Within that box are five bars and each bar is 1.42 ounces and has 190 calories and ten grams of protein.  According to them, it's a "chewy bar with naturally flavored yogurt coating" but I guess that I will be the judge of that!



When I took this out of the packaging, I was immediately struck by the strong smell of the mixed berry portion of the bar, with particular focus on the cranberry smell.  It was quite potent, actually.  The yogurt didn't smell of anything since it was plain.  As for the bar itself, it was clearly a base layer of Greek yogurt as you can see and then topped by a mix of granola, dried fruits (cranberries and blueberries) and then also bits and pieces of peanuts.  The bar was then topped with more pretty yogurt icing and that's all she wrote.

Taking a bit of this, my first impression that it was indeed chewy.  My second impression was that the yogurt really did nothing other than coat the fruit, nut and granola mix since it was just plain greek yogurt.  I was fine with that though because I wasn't expecting a lot from that part of the bar to begin with.  Based on the smell though, I was expecting a lot for the berries and specifically the cranberries and I certainly got that as the cranberry tang was quite strong.  The blueberry flavor was also strong too, although not nearly as prevalent as the cranberry flavor itself.  What shocked me the most about this though was the peanuts.  I expected them to add a bit of minimal crunch just based on the fact that they were peanuts, but what I didn't expect was that they would have enough flavor that I'd actually be able to taste them through the overwhelming power of the mixed berries.  The fact that I was able to taste them made this bar more enjoyable because they brought a slightly salty component to a bar that was almost overwhelming with its sweetness and tang.

Buy It or Fly By It?  The tang can be a bit much, but the Greek yogurt does a decent job muting that and the peanuts do a decent job changing up the flavor profile just enough.  Since they do have that small but meaningful impact, this bar gets saved for me and I'll go ahead and give it a BUY IT rating.  Not the most wonderful thing I've ever eaten, but certainly a tasty enough snack if you want or need it.

BUY IT!!

3 comments:

  1. These are the best. You don't adequately explain how amazing these are. I ate three boxes this weekend. Alone.

    ReplyDelete
  2. They are great but I'm wondering does it help your body any I'm trying to life weight and I eat these as a substituteTo shy away from candy and other sweets so if you know please let me know

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Derrick,

      They're pretty full of sugar, corn, soy and oats. The ingredients are low quality, and the bars are likely pretty high GI. But, as a candy substitute, they're probably much better.

      Delete

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