Are Protein Bars Good for You?

When you’re eating on the go, a protein bar is a better choice than pizza. But what’s wrong with a handful of nuts and maybe a piece of fruit instead? 

Protein bars are a tempting gesture toward the goal of a healthy diet, and there are plenty to choose from.

If you’re eating on the go, a protein bar is a better choice than pizza. But what’s wrong with a handful of nuts and maybe a piece of fruit instead? 

Maybe you save protein bars for a booster after a workout. But you can carry a baggie of nuts in the same space in your exercise bag or backpack.  

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Are protein bars good for you?

Perhaps the better question is: Are protein bars even healthy? The decisive argument against protein bars is that they’re sweetened, and most people eat an astonishing amount sweets already. When you look at an ingredients label on any protein bar, you may see sugar far down, or not at all — but sweeteners go by many names. And sweeteners are associated with all sorts of health problems.

• Think Thin bars are advertised as “sugar-free,” but some contain maltitol, which is pretty close to sugar in its impact on your body — in other words, it has a fairly high glycemic index.  
• Look for “sucralose,” also known as “Splenda,” in a Quest Bar. 
• Check Pure Protein bars for maltitol, dextrose (which is close to the glucose produced by your body), and sugar. 
• Even “low-sugar” Detour bars contain maltitol and maltodextrin, which has an even higher glycemic impact than ordinary sugar. 
• MusclePharm Combat Crunch bars, touted as low-sugar, still do have maltitol.
• The same goes for Met-Rx Protein Plus bars. 
• Robert Irvine’s FITCRUCH bars may contain sugar, corn syrup, sorbitol, and maltodextrin.    

Some bars sound low-tech but are sweet nonetheless. You’ll see sugar and fructose in Power Crunch bars. Kind bars may contain dried cane syrup, honey, sugar, and brown rice syrup. Nature Valley protein bars may contain sugar and corn syrup. 

Yet another family of bars adds lots of healthy stuff. In a Perfect Bar, you can get flax seed and alfalfa with your protein sources: nut butter, milk, and eggs. Greens Plus bars give you agave syrup and cane syrup with the fancy herbals like milk thistle and astragalus. Vega, Raw Revolution, and Health Warrior Chia bars all contain sweeteners, too. 

EPIC bars contain meat. Once upon a time, we called dried meat jerky. If you want your meat in a bar shape, so be it. But claims that you should lots of meat in emulation of cave men are speculative at best, and you can be sure this bar wasn’t available for hunter gatherers. 

When to eat protein bars, or not

For simplicity and no chemical sugar substitutes, try LÄRABAR products, which are sweetened with brown rice syrup and dates, or RXBARs, which get their protein from egg whites and nuts and their sweetness from dates. They also taste great.

But the truth is you may not actually need protein bars. 

You’ll hear a lot about “complete” and “incomplete” proteins. The take home here is: You don’t need to eat meat or meat products to get enough protein. You also don’t need to meet a protein target in any one meal. Finally, don’t rely on any one food or combination of foods to meet your protein needs. Variety is important. You want a varied diet that includes whole grains, nuts, beans, and legumes. 

For example, quinoa, soy, and buckwheat are considered complete proteins. Lentils and other beans are short in an amino acid called methionine, which is plentiful in brown rice. That’s why it’s no surprise so many cuisines emphasize rice and beans. In Indian homes, people eat chickpeas and lentils together with rice. Mexicans eat black or red beans and rice. 

Wheat and corn work well with beans and nuts, too. Humus, which contains chickpeas and sesame seeds, goes well with pita bread. Nut-butter on whole-wheat bread isn’t bad — although the white bread in the classic peanut butter and jelly sandwich isn’t going to help you much, nor does the jelly. You can eat corn traditionally, as polenta or tortillas, with your beans, rather than rice.

But you can eat chickpeas in your salad at lunch, nuts alone as a snack, and a dinner with tofu and be fine.

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