Review: CLIF Kit's Organic Cashew Fruit & Nut Bar

I reviewed a CLIF Kit's Organic bar a while back here on the blog that I got via a free sample.  Since then, I've been looking for those bars in my typical stores but have never seen one.  As I mentioned in a prior post, I was recently in New York City and was meandering around and stumbled into a Whole Foods Market where I saw a variety of bars that I don't ordinarily see.  This CLIF Kit's Organic Cashew Fruit & Nut Bar was one of them and since I've been looking for another one of these for quite some time, I knew I could spare the $1.50 to grab this one off the shelf.  The bar itself checks in at 1.62 ounces with 170 calories and three grams of protein.  It's obviously organic, but is also gluten free, dairy free and soy free.

Taking this out of the wrapper, the obvious comparison here is that it looks and feels like a Larabar in that it's a bar made of a date puree that is mixed with nuts (almonds and cashews) and sea salt.  It was soft and pliable, just like I would have expected it to be and it had a smell that was very "date-like", if that makes any sense.  Outside of those brief observations, there's not much else to say on this from an appearance standpoint.

When I bit into this, I was met with the expected chewiness of the bar and then the grainy texture of the ground up nuts in the mix.  None of the nuts were big enough to be considered crunchy, so it was just more of a grainy feel as I made my way through.  In terms of flavor, the date component was basically absent that in really only added texture and not really any flavor.  As for the nuts, they showed themselves in varying ways.  The cashew flavor was definitely evident and they were there in all their salty glory, although that was certainly helped along by the presence of sea salt in the bar.  The almond flavor was also there in a surprising amount, although it was only a subtle hint of flavor at the end of each bite.  Basically, the salt was the star of this bar and if you are a nutty and salty type of person, this is right up your alley.

Buy It or Fly By It?  I'm typically not the type of person that prefers salty foods, but I do like nutty foods and because of that, I'll give it a BUY IT rating.  This bar was by no means spectacular, but as a nut lover, I appreciated the fact that I was getting something with nutty flavor in a chewy bar form.  The only catch to this is that it is probably a good idea to have some fluid nearby when eating this because that saltiness can start to have an effect after eating the entire bar.

BUY IT!!