Review: Detour Lower Sugar Caramel Peanut Protein Bar

It seems that I can only find these Detour bars at one of my regular stores and that's why I've only done one review in the past.  That store is Meijer and their nutrition bar section is in a part of the store that requires me to make a special trip, so on the rare occasion that I do my grocery shopping there, I even more rarely visit that section.  Anyway, that boring diatribe about my shopping habits aside, I picked up this Detour Lower Sugar Caramel Peanut Protein Bar for $1.25 at the aforementioned Meijer.  It is 50% less sugar (thus the name) and weighs in at 1.5 ounces with 170 calories and fifteen grams of protein.

I love it when the wrappers of these bars take away the mystery of what they look like.  The only mystery then becomes how well the bar looks compared to what the promotional materials depict it as.  Let's call it the McDonald's Conundrum.  The promotional photos always look delicious, but as anyone that has ever eaten at McDonald's knows, the photos rarely look like the item you eventually receive.  With this Detour bar, the promotional photos were fairly close to what the bar actually looked like.  They nailed it on the fact that this bar had a chocolate coating exterior.  Within the interior was what seemed to be a peanut butter/protein base and that was topped with sticky and gooey caramel.  They nailed it compared to the photo on that one too.  Where they didn't nail it was the presence of the peanuts.  There were peanuts in the bar, but they weren't as large or as seemingly plentiful as the pictures made me think.  They were more along the size of a BB.  Don't get me wrong, the peanuts were there, but they weren't all over the place.  As for the olfactory component of the bar, it smelled strongly of caramel with a peanut/peanut butter type of complimentary smell.  Being that those are two of my favorite things, I was anxious to dive in.

As I took my first bite and then took a look back at the bar, I was reminded of one thing...a SNICKERS bar.  The interior of this bar was slightly less nougat than the candy bar, but in terms of the raw components involved, it was very similar to the candy bar.  It didn't just look like the candy bar either, it actually tasted eerily similar too.  There was a bit more peanut (butter) flavor in this one as it was initially strong flavored, subsided for a bit and then returned late with more flavor at the end of each bite.  In that time where it subsided, the flavor was quickly replaced with a strong taste of rich, gooey and delightful caramel.  The chocolate component of the bar didn't really have any uniquely identifiable flavor, but it did provide a hint of sweetness to compliment the caramel and nougat-like interior.  The only real non-factor in this bar was the peanuts.  Sure, they added a bit of occasional crunch but they were just that...occasional.  They didn't really bring any flavor, but I think that was more of the fact that they were overpowered by the nougat-like interior and the gooey caramel.  As for that nougat-like interior, it was a bit gummy, but considering this is a "healthy" protein bar, that has to be expected.

Buy It or Fly By It?  I think this was a more than reasonable "healthy" approximation of a SNICKERS bar and anytime you can draw that kind of comparison, it's kind of a given that you are going to be receiving a BUY IT rating.  Frankly, this thing was absolutely delicious and fortunately I only had one at home when I ate this because this is definitely one of those bars that I could see myself wolfing down five of them in one sitting.  Get your hands on one (or more) and I think you might feel the same way and have these same reaction as me.

BUY IT!!