Review: Balance Bar Dark Dark Chocolate Coconut Bar

After an extended absence, the blog has started a slight run on Balance Bar reviews as today's review takes another look at one of their other product lines.  With that very brief introduction, I'll dive in and report that I was able to pick up this  Balance Bar Dark Dark Chocolate Coconut Bar at Meijer for $1.00 and it comes in at 1.58 ounces and has 180 calories and thirteen grams of protein.  It's also gluten free and kosher, so it's showing a lot of balance in terms of all the audiences it can reach.  Ha, ha...get it?  What a witty writer I am.  Okay, false egotism aside, I suppose I should actually get down to the business of the review.

Review: NuGo Dark Chocolate Pretzel with Sea Salt Bar

I've touched on NuGo bars before in reviews on this blog, but my local Krogers have stocked their shelves with basically the same flavors for quite some time, so I haven't had the opportunity to add to that review archive.  On a recent trip through the store, I noticed that Kroger added a new flavor to their arsenal, so I was able to pick up this NuGo Dark Chocolate Pretzel with Sea Salt Bar for $1.79.  The bar itself is 200 calories with ten grams of protein.  It's also gluten free, vegan and pareve (a new one for me; click on this link to learn more), so it's a perfectly viable alternative for all the health nuts (I don't mean that in a derogatory sense) out there.

Review: Balance Bar Dark Dark Chocolate Crunch Bar

This is adventure number two in my review of these new "Dark" line of bars from Balance Bar.  For anyone that reads this blog on a semi-regular basis, it is well documented that dark chocolate is not exactly high on my list of favorite things, so when my first foray into reviewing this line of products was a positive one, there was probably no one more surprised than me.  Today's second foray leads me into this review of the Balance Bar Dark Dark Chocolate Crunch Bar that I picked up at Kroger for $1.00.  Just like a typical Balance Bar, this one weighed in at 1.58 ounces with 180 calories and thirteen grams of protein.  It's also gluten free, so that'll help the celiacs of the world.

Review: Balance Bar Dark Dark Chocolate Peanut Bar

Eckhart Tolle once said "evolve or die" (yes, I had to look that up) and the subject of today's review certainly would sort of relate to that quote.  Balance Bar has been featured frequently on this blog, but today is my first look at another evolution of their product offerings with my first foray in to their "Dark" line of bars that feature dark chocolate.  This Balance Bar Dark Dark Chocolate Peanut Bar (how many times can the same word be duplicated in a product name) set me back a whole $1.00 at Kroger and it clocks in at 1.58 ounces with 180 calories and thirteen grams of protein.

Review: NuGo Dark Chocolate Chocolate Chip Bar

So my last NuGo review didn't go so well.  I was so appalled by the bar that I spit it out after I got halfway through because I couldn't bear the thought of eating any more of it.  Because of that, I wasn't exactly excited to review this NuGo Dark Chocolate Chocolate Chip Bar, but since NuGo sent me coupons to get this bar for free, I felt that I had to give it a review.  Plus, I was hungry, which also may have had something to do with it.  The bar itself was 1.76 ounces with 200 calories and ten grams of protein.  It was also dairy free, which as I learned from NuGo after my last review, all dark chocolate is that way.  I never knew that.

Review: NuGo Dark Mocha Chocolate Bar

One of the added side benefits of this blog is that I sometimes get contacted by companies and/or their public relations firms to try products.  Oftentimes, these products are things I have never heard of before and that's the case with this NuGo bar.  Being that I've been doing this blog for a while now, I pride myself on the fact that I have a pretty good working knowledge of most of the manufacturers of nutrition bars that are nationally distributed, but NuGo got me fooled.  The reason?  NuGo positions itself as an organic chocolate type bar and its products are located near the organic chocolate (think Newman's Own, etc.) in Kroger and not near the typical nutrition bar section.  Thus, I was unfamiliar with them and after they sent me some coupons for free samples, I picked up this NuGo Dark Mocha Chocolate Bar at Kroger to try out.  It's 1.76 ounces and comes in at 200 calories with ten grams of protein.  It's "healthy" dark chocolate and is also all natural, vegan and also dairy free.  Something about dairy free chocolate scares me, but I guess that's because milk chocolate has been so hammered into my head throughout my life that chocolate without dairy doesn't make a ton of sense to me.

Review: Zone Perfect Dark Dark Chocolate Strawberry Bar

I stuttered quite a bit as a child, but I can assure you that I did not stutter or make a typographical error with the name of this bar in the heading of this post.  The reason "Dark" is included twice is that this bar is from Zone Perfect's "Dark" line of nutrition bars and it is flavored as a Dark Chocolate Strawberry bar.  Anyway, now that I've clarified (like you probably cared), it's time to get down to the nitty gritty of this review...I picked this one up at Kroger on sale for $1.00 at Kroger and it comes in at the standard Zone Perfect weight of 1.58 ounces.  It has 180 calories and twelve grams of protein and it says it is all natural, although when I read the ingredient list, there's a lot of natural things I don't recognize.  I usually don't write about ingredients because I don't care for the most part, but when something bills itself as all natural and then I can't pronounce half the things on the ingredient list, I begin to scratch my head.

Review: Zone Perfect Dark Dark Chocolate Caramel Pecan Nutrition Bar

I like the semi-hot streak that I'm working on with Zone Perfect reviews here at Crazy Food Dude.  So far, I've liked all but one that I've had, although I haven't tried any from their "Dark" line of bars that are angled at the dark chocolate market.  As you may or may not know, dark chocolate is supposedly high in antioxidants, so it is supposed to be healthier for you than regular chocolate.  Anyway, I picked up this Dark Chocolate Caramel Pecan bar at Kroger on sale for $1.00.  It weights in at a semi-small 1.58 ounces and contains 190 calories with a respectable twelve grams of protein.