“Be strong, not hungry”
12 g Protein | 2g Sugar | Gluten Free
Net carbs: 14 g Sugars: 8 g
Overall rating: 😁🦾😋
Flavor
Bulletproof has a range of great-tasting legitimately healthy products. Their collagen protein bars are one of the best in the niche.
Full disclosure, this is a product I use regularly after workouts to restore and recover. I have sort of a bias going into this, but that’s OK.
I usually eat the mint chocolate chip flavor, but I grabbed a vanilla shortbread for this Snack-vestigation. I was expecting it to be weird, because it’s often hard to emulate real foods in a bar. Quest does it pretty well, though, and now so does Bulletproof.
This is a really pleasant flavor. It’s even kind of crumbly like shortbread. All of Bulletproof’s flavors are equally crumbly, though, so that’s mostly coincidental.
Here’s a major key secret to making good flavors: USE FRIGGIN GOOD INGREDIENTS GOD DAMMIT!!!!! It boggles the mind to imagine how so many people overlook this simple truth.
This vanilla flavor is so rich and delicious because Bulletproof uses actual vanilla extract and vanilla beans. Keep your synthetic vanilla flavoring out of my protein bars.
Bulletproof also made a wise decision to leave the egg whites out of their collagen bar, so we don’t have that weird eggy flavor that plagues Caveman Paleo, Primal Kitchen, and other collagen bars.
Packaging appeal
Coincidentally, Bulletproof uses the same primary colors as Snaktak: Green and Orange. They also have some tan and blue in their color palette, so I’ll hold off calling the trademark lawyers for now.
The entire bulletproof aesthetic is wonderfully modern, though. The wireframe bird logo is a nice eye-catching bit of brand identity, but it looks a bit too much like a pigeon for me.
This is a silicon valley brand, though, and I remember San Jose’s pigeons being startlingly resourceful and resilient, so maybe it’s a decent mascot.
God, packaging copy is awful, though. 99% of the time it just sounds so cheesy and inhuman. People only speak this way when they’re trying to sell you something you wouldn’t ordinarily buy.
I always question the role that packaging copy plays in consumer choices. Most marketers I’ve spoken with agree that consumers don’t read the packaging before buying something, they just grab whichever product is the most eye-catching.
Packaging copy only matters to people like me who actually take care in what foods we consume. Is that why we put care into our writing? Just so other marketers can pick it apart and seek inspiration from each other’s feeble attempts to claw our way out of this food industry crab barrel?
Ingredient quality
For the most part, this is a great product, ingredient-wise. Bulleptroof uses organic ingredients, calorie-neutral sweeteners, the most bioavailable form of collagen, and their proprietary Brain Octane coconut oil. Brain Octane oil is a cornerstone of the ketogenic “Bulletproof” diet.
I was mildly triggered by one ingredient, tapioca dextrin. Tapioca usually funcrions as an added sweetener, but it seems that Tapioca Dextrin is a relatively innocuous stabilizer.
Dextrin is a polysaccharide, a complex carbohydrate made up of simple sugars. In dextrin’s case, the simple sugar is glucose. At first glance this sounds like an unhealthy added sweetener. But nutrition is complicated.
According to biologydicitionary.com, “Some polysaccharides are used for storing energy, some for sending cellular messages, and others for providing support to cells and tissues.” (I’ve reached out to Biology Dictionary to find out their primary sources).
I’m not sure which function Tapioca Dextrin serves, but it seems uncomfortably similar to the Tapioca fiber that I’ve demonized in other posts. It’s hard to tell sometimes what’s going on behind all the obfuscation and technicalities in food labeling.
In this particular product it seems like bulletproof chose tapioca dextrin in order to remain gluten free. I have no positive or negative feelings about that.
It’s important to remember that Bulletproof’s founder Dave Asprey built his reputation on thorough research into nutrition and brain function. You can read his book Game Changers to see just how wide ranging his research into self-improvement has been. (this is a legitimately great read. He covers everything from nootropic brain drugs, to psychedelics, to meditation.)
It’s not good to place too much trust in people, but until I find further information I’ll go ahead and trust that Dave Asprey’s Tapioca Dextrin is innocuous.
Company practices
Like I said, bulletproof makes a lot of great life-enhancing products. A lot of their products are coffee-centric, too, which is exciting for me, a caffeine addict. I’ve used their brain octane oil before, and even written about bulletproof.
Bulletproof first grew popular by promoting the use of fat in coffee to help metabolize the caffeine. Around 2016 I began seeing lots of headlines about butter in coffee. That was around the time that Dave Asprey began pushing bulletproof into everyone’s consciousness.
Bulletproof is one of the companies riding the current wave of health and wellness research to new financial heights. They make tons of friggin money on this stuff because it’s high-quality and well-marketed.
Bulletproof is a Google-level brand name because it has become synonymous with a whole category of activity. Even when I use DuckDuckGo I am googling stuff. Even if I add my own coconut oil to safeway brand coffee I’m drinking Bulletproof coffee.
Some people even refer to the whole Ketogenic diet as bulletproof. I’m not sure if that was Asprey’s plan the whole time, but he’s certainly knocked it out of the park on this one.
I have mad respect for bulletproof, because they go out of their way to educate people on healthy living. Visit the “health Upgrades” section and you’ll find all sorts of guides, supplements, and newsletters you can explore to elevate your life.
It’s important that we go above and beyond what’s necessary to help each other reach the highest possible heights.
Snackability
These are easy to eat and highly enjoyable. This might be a perfect snack. You could never make this in bite form, so for this product’s particular composition a bar is the most snackable form.
Snackability is a somewhat ethereal quality. Like what sets Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock apart from other equally abstract modern artists? You really have to be in tune with your intuition to understand different products’ varying levels of snackability.
Overall, Bulletproof Collagen Protein Bars get a rating of 😁🦾😋
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