Whey Protein Bar
Protein: 20g Net carbs: 39 g Added sugars: ? Ingredients say 3g of sugar alcohols, but give no clear number for the amount of added sugar.
Overall rating: 🤢🤬👎
Flavor
Excellent flavor overall. This has all of the flavor and mouthfeel of a crunch bar, but with a bit more character and substance. Maybe it’s because they used whey protein crisps instead of just powder, but the chalky metallic taste you find in a lot of energy bars is not there.
This is a candy bar, though, and no one can reasonably argue otherwise. It looks, tastes, and feels like candy. I guess if you’re going to eat a candy bar, you may as well eat one with a little extra protein in it.
Look!!! —> They literally sell these bars on candy.com!
Packaging appeal
Not much. If you went to any competent design firm and asked for the most unexceptional energy bar wrapper with just enough appeal to grab people’s attention, this is what they’d design. If the Gatorade logo was not present, no one would notice this packaging.
It’s cool that they have all of the different sports league logos on there. That will trick unsuspecting normies into buying this candy bar because they fantasize about being Marshawn Lynch or Derek Jeter.
I do appreciate the “Protein to help muscles recover” callout. At least they try to remind you that exercise is ideal before consuming this candy bar. Gotta expend some energy to use the 41 grams of carbs.
Ingredient quality
I’m concerned that the first ingredient is “chocolate flavored coating” not just “chocolate coating. It’s “almost food.”
They essentially dumped a bunch of sugar, cocoa powder, and flavoring into palm oil and called it a day. Palm oil is one of those marginally food-grade ingredients mass producers put in to keep their costs low.
Unsurprisingly, this bar contains a lot of classic filler ingredients. Soy lecithin, glycerin, palm oil, corn syrup, all make an appearance. All of these are refined industrial ingredients that disrupt your gut biome and natural hormone production. I give any product with these ingredients an automatic fail.
Furthermore, for all you fatheads out there, this product is the opposite of Keto-friendly. I did the math and it’s about 51% carbs, with very little dietary fiber to offset it. This would literally kill someone who was trying to stay on a Keto diet.
Company practices
Gatorade is not known for its healthy products or significant sustainability efforts. They’re known for two things: winning and technicolor sweat.
They’re not here to make you healthy, they’re here to keep you running, jumping, tackling, and scoring until you drop dead on the sidelines. They optimize their products for energy and mass appeal.
In 2007, a Gatorade plant did receive a sustainability award, but it’s not clear what the company has made any other efforts toward environmental preservation since then.
Oh, nevermind! Here’s an outline of Pepsi’s greenwashing plan for the next few years.
Any time you see phrases like “Performance with a purpose” it means a company wants to appear environmentally friendly without actually putting in any effort.
Given that Pepsico owns Gatorade, though, we cannot give this company a good grade on corporate practices. PepsiCo is a major player in the distribution of obesity and diabetes-producing food products marketed towards families and children.
They add so much sugar and sweeteners to their food to keep you addicted. This is candy disguised as health food to make you keep buying more while you gain weight despite your best efforts to lose it. “I exercised and ate the protein bars,” hapless consumers say, “Why do I keep gaining weight?”
Snackability
It’s a great size for athletes who are expending a lot of energy regularly. Given that’s the target market, I’d call this very snackable.
Average joes and esports athletes probably don’t have the necessary metabolism for this to be a snack, so it’s not an ideal bar for them.
Overall, Gatorade Recover Bars get a rating of 🤢🤬👎
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