Flavors Tried: Peanut Butter Fudge, Cold Brew Coffee
Price: $29.99 for 12 Bars ($2.50 per bar)
Nutrition: 170 Calories, 8g Fat, 11g Carbs, 14g Protein
I stumbled across these Vital Proteins bars are my local Rite Aid, and I knew what I was getting myself into when I bought them.
While it may not ALWAYS be the case, it seems that any time there’s a celebrity attached to a food product, it fails to impress.
So, when I saw Jennifer Aniston’s name on these bars, I had a feeling that these protein bars would fall short.
Side note: if you watch my video review above, you’ll see that I found hair in one of the bars. That has absolutely no factor on the following review (although maybe it should) but it makes for a fun watch.
I tried two flavors: the peanut butter fudge and the cold brew coffee.
First up, I decided to try the peanut butter fudge brownie. When you crack the bar open, you notice that the texture seems to be pretty unique. The interior is loaded up with crispy pieces, which is a nice contrast against the standard chewy protein bar interior.
Unfortunately, the bar is still pretty dense, so it’s not much different than other bars out there.
In terms of flavor, if you’ve ever eaten a chocolate peanut butter-flavored protein bar, you already know exactly what this bar tastes like.
Think of any cheap protein bar you’ve eaten before (my mind always goes to Pure Protein bars, because they always seem to be $1) and that is precisely what this bar tastes like.
Next up, we have cold brew coffee. I happen to love cold brew coffee, but I knew that there was about a 1% chance that this bar would actually resemble cold brew.
When you open this bar, you definitely smell coffee, which I was surprised by. I double-checked the ingredients, and they do use decaf coffee powder in this bar, so they get some points for that.
However, the bar itself just tastes like bad, burnt coffee.
If you were to go to a friend’s house and they had a pot of Folger’s coffee sitting out from the day before, that’s essentially what this bar tastes like.
Does it resemble coffee? Yes, it certainly does. But does it resemble good coffee? No, and certainly not cold brew.
The final verdict?
These aren’t bad protein bars, but they’re not good protein bars, either.
I would consider these to be very average. If you were given these protein bars for free, you’d have no problem eating them. You wouldn’t be overly impressed, but it wouldn’t be a chore.
However, considering each bar is $2.50, you can find much, much better.
