“Women Helping Women”
No Gluten, GMOs, Artificials, or Fluff
Net carbs: 9 g Sugar: 5/6 g
Overall rating: 😴💪🏃♀️💃
Flavor
Flavors reviewed: Coconut Crave and Chocolate Date Night
It’s kind of funny how many protein bars taste exactly the same. Especially becuase they all have the same basic flavors.
Peanut butter chocolate. Chocolate Sea Salt. Coconut. Berry. Geez, what’s a guy to do?
An energy bar’s flavor and texture are not so much dependent on who makes them but what’s in there. What I mean is that two companies’ coconut flavor is not going to be much different from another company’s coconut flavor.
They’ll use the same basic ingredients, with minor variations based on their ingredient quality and how everything is mixed during manufacturing.
This Chocolate Date Night bar tastes like an RX bar with chia seeds in it. Aside from the Chia seeds, vegetable glycerin, and tapioca fiber, this is basically an RX Bar.
This bar should not say “no fluff” when that’s demonstrably false. The dark chocolate sea salt Rx Bar has the same exact flavor but with no fillers or added sweeteners.
It blows me away when people use dates and feel like they still have to add sweetener to a product. Dates on their own are the most miraculous sweetener nature ever conceived.
Figure it out, people.
Packaging appeal
These are very well-designed for the target market: insecure ladies who want to be more fit and attractive.
Front and center, we have an illustration of a ponytailed woman above the “Goal Digger” slogan. Let’s call this lady Patricia.
Patricia Gets shit done and looks good doing it. She’s literally a shining star on this package.
It’s easy to reimagine this packaging as a stylish outfit. The colored section is a classy crop top, while the black and gold polka dots are the pattern on Patricia’s skirt/pants. Did I mind-read their graphic design or am I just fantasizing about a protein bar now?
I can’t escape the feeling that Jenna Kutcher is somehow involved here. “Naturally Delish” is exactly what I’d imaging Jenna Kutcher writing on her energy bar.
Maybe this marketing niche is simply big enough that multiple people can use the same language and communication style to market to it, even while they’re marketing entirely different products.
I can’t imagine a packaging that more effectively channels that strong-but-still-feminine vibe that all these instagram influencers go for.
Feminity is a strength. It’s a bummer that people have to remind themselves of it so often, but we would not be anywhere without strong feminine influences from a lot of great women thoughout history.
Masculinity and femininity have different types of strength associated with them, and we need both to thrive as a society.
In a minor way, these protein bars are a fantastic celebration of powerful femininity.
Ingredient quality
Before I started reviewing all these energy bars I had no idea what the deal was with a lot of ingredients. Now, I’ve learned a lot.
Vegetable glycerin and tapioca fiber are two industrially processed ingredients a lot of energy bar manufacturers use to sweeten and improve their products texture.
Tapioca fiber is interesting, because it seems like this might just be a name food companies use to disguise their use of isomaltooligosaccharides, sweeteners extracted from various starchy sources.
Everyone is worried about carbs, so food manufacturers have a vested interest in selling low-carb products. More realistically, they have an interest in selling products people PERCEIVE as low-carb.
Tapioca fiber, and other similar sweeteners improve a product’s flavor and texture without raising the carb count. That’s why a lot of keto-focused products use it.
This is not explicitly a keto product, but they put the net carbs on the wrapper, whih leads me to believe that a significant chunk of their customers are chasing the keto dragon.
As far as I understand it , Tapioca Fiber is an effective prebiotic that helps you digest the bar. And pairing that with the probiotic Bacillus Coagulans might be great for your gut biome.
I’m not particularly well versed in specific probiotics and their efficacy. I have read plenty that suggests taking one probiotic at a time might not be effective.
I didn’t feel the same probiotic pop as i feel when I eat kimchi or drink Kombucha, so it’s hard to tell how much impact it has.
One can never forget about the placebo effect though. Maybe just reading the word probiotic before you eat something has a tangible effect on your microbiome.
This might sound ethically unsound, but if a company sells products that even indirectly improve your health through the placebo effect, that a positive impact.
Company practices
Goal Digger… Hmmm… Did these people rip off Jenna Kutcher?
I looked around a bit to see if there was a link. I can’t imagine Jenna being involved with this product and not having her face prominently displayed on the website.
The concept of Goal Diggers is fantastic though. It’s a play on the term Gold Digger, which is a woman who openly chooses her romantic partners based on their level of wealth.
It’s a cheeky empowerment move that seems to have inspired a lot of women.
No one has to live a certain way simply because of their gender. People might tnd toward different roles and opportunities, but in a free society we need to empower anyone with a benevolent goal to pursue it.
Woah, and Melonie DeRose, this company’s founder has definitely worked hard to make something. It seems this is the second of her business ventures.
She also started Fé Fit, a women’s fitness brand.
Perhaps as DeRose met with fitness customers, she heard a lot about their nutritional woes. Thus, empact bars were born. I wonder if DeRose came up with that name herself or if a marketing firm did it.
The name combines empower + impact, which could easily be either an honest statement of intent or a carefully worded marketing slogan.
Regardless, I have a lot of respect for this lady. She started a business, took advantage of opportunities she created for herself, and now has two businesses that support each other!
I admire her hustle. I sometimes consider buying Dirtballs.com to extend my own web real estate.
Although it’s hard to judge how well Fé Fit is doing. There are significant web design issues here, and the actual fitness products look above average quality at best.
Snackability
Without even realizing it, Empact made one of the most snackable products I’ve ever seen. These are the perfect size for their target market.
For me this is too small. I could probably eat 4 and still be hungry.
But for women this portion size seems ideal. These are designed by women for women to be as snackable as possible.
Way to go, Empact.
Overall, Empact Bars get a rating of 😴💪🏃♀️💃