Review: KIND Blueberry Vanilla & Cashew Fruit & Nut Bar

I've often mentioned here that I sometimes find products where it shocks me that I've never reviewed them because it seems like I would have done so in the past since it's not a new product and it's been on the shelves of my local store for quite some time.  Today's product review of this KIND Blueberry Vanilla & Cashew Fruit & Nut Bar is one of those instances I'm stunned that I've never done a review on this before.  With that, let's dive in.  This bar was picked up at Kroger for $1.37 and comes in at 1.4 ounces.  It's packing 190 calories and four grams of protein and is also all natural, cholesterol free and gluten free.

As with the majority of KIND bars, this one lays it out there for the world to see with it's clear packaging and uncovered surface.  Within this surface are a mix of of a ton of dried blueberries and raisins, as you can see above.  Also in there are a plethora of almonds, cashews and peanuts.  This was all bound together by honey which made this bar extremely sticky.  And as you can see, KIND certainly did not skimp on the number of ingredients that they packed into here.  Pretty impressive actually.  The bar itself also had a very strong smell of vanilla that was punctuated with a little hint of sweet berry smell at the end.  There's also a scattering of rice crisps in there too, but the nuts and dried fruits are the real star of the show here.

Before I dive into the flavor, it's worth noting that this bar was extremely crunchy and chewy, which provided a ton of texture.  The crunch came from the overabundance of nuts and the chewiness came from the overabundance of fruits.  It truly was a fun bar to make my way though.  The real question is the flavor though and I can say that this bar was a lot of vanilla, both at the beginning and the end.  At the front end of each bite was a strong pop of vanilla which dissipated, but did not disappear, as I chewed my way through.  There was a slight sweet berry accent of flavor at the end of each bite (similar to the way it smelled), so this definitely had what I'd consider a "fresh" taste to its total package.  The honey also brought a degree of decadent sweetness to the berry sweetness and that was countered by the saltiness of the nuts in the mix, which it should come as no surprise, was led by the peanut flavor.  What was interesting about this is that the cashews also carried strong flavor too and weren't completely overpowered by the peanuts.  That doesn't usually happen (at least for me) in products where the two nuts are mixed together, so that was a nice change of pace.

Buy It or Fly By It?  This one was a whole bunch of vanilla and fruit flavor packed into one bar and I found it particularly enjoyable, so I give this a BUY IT rating.  If you like vanilla, you are going to like this bar because there is a whole lot of it.  The punctuation of the berry and vanilla flavor in each bite also works well with this bar and while it's not the most fancy flavor in the world, I think it's a darn good one.  Pick this up off the shelf and I think you'll probably agree with me.

BUY IT!!