How Much Nutrition is in Your Nutrition Bar?

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Erin Brockmeyer, GoLocalWorcester Natural Health Expert

They are called nutrition bars or energy bars so the impression they give is that they will provide you with healthy energy. These little bars have been around for more than two decades, and they’ve come a long way since those first thin, leather-like, awful tasting PowerBars -- there is now a sea of bars at most grocery stores boasting flavors like chocolate chip and lemon bliss.

Originally designed for endurance athletes, PowerBars were the original energy bar and their purpose was to provide an easy carbohydrate and protein source in a portable package. Now nutrition bars seem to have become a mainstay of many people’s diets. But if you are not summiting Mt. St. Helens or running the Portland Marathon, is there really any benefit to eating them?

Nutrition/energy bars were never intended for the average person. Like any product, however, once it became clear that the endurance athlete was not the only one consuming them, the manufacturers responded in droves. When you walk into a grocery store today it is not unusual to see a huge wall of bars that make wild claims about nutrition, taste and healthfulness. Consumers have begun to buy into the idea that these are a legitimate part of their daily caloric intake and a healthy part of their diet.

There tend to be two main ways people use nutrition bars. Many people use them as a meal replacement on-the-go, whereas others rely on them as a handy snack. If you are backpacking and need to conserve space then they may be a reasonable option. It is certainly not a healthy meal replacement, however, as the energy in most nutrition bars comes largely from two sources: sugar and soy protein isolate.

If you need any reasons why sugar is bad for you, just read this GoLocalPDX article or google it, and you’ll find an almost endless list of the dangers of sugar. And a lot of these bars have as much sugar as a candy bar -- yet they don’t taste nearly as good. How is that even possible? Or worthwhile? Take a Cliff Bar for instance. A staple of many purses and desk drawers, this nutrition bar has 23 grams of sugar, as compared to the 24 grams of sugar in a Snickers bar. Most energy bars are incredibly high in sugar because they are so highly processed that this is the only way the manufacturers can make the bars palatable. The point is not that sugar should never be eaten, but it certainly should not be the key source of your energy.

Ah, but there is protein in the Cliff Bar, so that’s good. A Cliff Bar attempts to offset the sugar bomb it is providing by doling out approximately 9 grams of protein, whereas the Snickers bar provides a mere 4 grams. Nutrition bars typically pack in somewhere between 4 and 20 grams of protein per bar, and that is the draw for many people. The debate in the nutrition bar realm is whether or not the protein they provide is any good for you. Snickers bars and nutrition bars with protein levels on the low end tend to get their protein from peanuts or other nuts. Bars on the high protein end tend to get theirs from soy protein isolate. Peanuts have their good and bad points, and even looking at peanuts in the best possible light will not convince anyone that a Snickers bar is a health food. But is soy protein isolate any better?

Soy has benefits in its organic, whole and fermented forms, but soy protein isolate is none of the above. It is massively processed and is basically the leftover bits of soy when all the nutrients are stripped away. This processed food has also been linked to some unsavory health issues. Because the soy is highly concentrated, it has been blamed for allergies and digestive problems. The processing often happens via hexane, which is being reexamined as a potentially unsafe food processing method because of evidence that it may be neurotoxic. At the very least, it is not nearly as good as many of the other whole foods protein options out there.

It is also important to point out that most nutrition bars have an extremely high calorie count -- especially when you compare it to the relatively tiny size of the bar itself. Many bars have as many calories as a heavy snack or small to medium sized meal, yet because they are only a few bites in size you are not left feeling full or satisfied. You eat a bar and 20 minutes later you eat an actual lunch. Most people will find that if they regularly consume energy bars they will increase their overall daily caloric intake as well.

Next time you think about grabbing a nutrition bar for a quick snack or meal replacement, pay attention to what you are really buying. Be mindful of the fact that many of the options on the shelf are really just fancy candy bars (that don’t actually taste as good). Opt for bars that are made only with whole foods and don’t have added sugars or weird franken-proteins. Save the “nutrition bars” for backpacking, marathons and emergencies.

Erin Brockmeyer, LAc, is owner and acupuncturist at Solstice Natural Health in downtown Portland, Oregon. She creates custom health plans for patients to help them tackle their most complicated health concerns, including infertility, prenatal care, fibromyalgia, thyroid conditions and chronic and acute pain conditions. Visit her website for more information and to download her free e-book 5 Simple Ways to Improve Your Health Today.