“Powerful Nutrition”
11G Protein | Gluten Free | 6 Ingredients | Plant Based
Net carbs: 9 g Added sugars: 9 g
Overall rating: 😄🌿💚
Flavor
Imagine a ethnically ambiguous 36-year-old woman carefully filling mason jars with bulk herbs and teas at your favorite natural grocers. Note the respect she pays each ingredient as she pours them into their new homes. Lose yourself in the memories that her aroma of incense and essential oils pull up from deep in your past.
Now encapsulate that entire feeling in a flavor. That’s what Hummingbar has masterfully managed to do with their line of hemp-based protein bars.
Hemp is wonderful from a nutritional standpoint, but today I want to talk about the flavor.
Seeds tend to have a rubbery earthy flavor that can come across as strange or bitter to normie consumers. But I’ve spent a lot of time appreciating pungent fermented flavors and the delicate bitterness of a fine green tea. I’m grateful for the flavors nature has created for us.
In Hummingbar’s hemp products, the hemp gives an almost spicy undertone to these simple snacks. This almost savory flavor experience is damn near transcendent for the energy bar world.
All you flavor scientists had better watch out, because this is absolutely masterful flavor craft. The Seed & Date flavor is unexciting, but Lavender Blueberry & Pistachio transports you to a fantasy world where real magic still might be possible.
I know these people are with it because of how they treat the lavender flavor. It would have been easy for them to simply dump in some lavender essential oil and call it a day.
By deciding to include whole lavender flowers, they allow the lavender’s complete natural qualities to take you on a journey as they unfold across your palate.
Respecting beautiful plants in their entirety is a sign of higher intelligence. Hummingbar has struck a good balance between celebrating Mother Earth’s natural bounty and refining it into consumer-friendly products.
Packaging appeal
This is Hummingbar’s weakest area. Bland minimalism is a plague on modern society. This design would work on any protein bar or fitness apparel brand.
My only guess is that they wanted to balance out their unconventional flavors by giving the normies something visually appealing yet unthreatening to their sense of normalcy.
Ingredient quality
Hummingbar wins. Period.
6 Ingredients and some of the most exciting flavors I’ve encountered.The only problem is my ongoing moral quandary regarding sugar.
On a chemical level, sweeteners all break down into the same sugar molecules in our body. The main difference between sweeteners is their Glycemic Index, which affects how much your blood glucose spikes when you eat them.
There are also certain contexts where sugar is a good thing. After intense strength training, for example, a quick supplement of complex carbs can help you recover better. Many top-notch bodybuilders eat snickers bars and other candy to replace the glycogen they deplete lifting heavy shit.
Hummingbars are a good choice for vegan bodybuilders. Two of these would give you plenty of protein, carbs, and essential nutrients. (I say two because these are pretty small and people who lift heavy a lot need to eat more overall.)
It’s extremely important to match your food intake to your activity level. The big problem with sweeteners is that people don’t do anything active that would necessitate that level of carb intake.
Another complication comes from the variation between our bodies. Two people might have exact opposite reactions to the same sweeteners. Until glucose monitoring technology becomes more accessible and affordable, many people will be unable to truly know exactly how different foods affect their bodies.
Honey, however, always seems like a good option. It falls into the whole foods philosophy, which is a great simple tool to elevate your health.
Refined sweeteners are worse than unrefined substances like honey, dates, or molasses. And I’ve heard for a long time about honey’s antioxidant and antibacterial qualities. I even use garlic fermented in honey to ward off sickness during winter.
I suspect that a detailed nutritional analysis of Hummingbar would tell you the fiber from the hemp and dates nicely balances out the glycemic load of their natural honey.
Company practices
Like Evo Hemp, Hummbar is a product line that a hemp company developed to open up new revenue streams and spread the wonders of this wonderful plant.
Hemp is one of the only superfoods that really deserves the title. It’s honestly an all-around super plant, not just a food.
You can make paper, fuel, houses, cars, food, and medicine all out of hemp. Why do we even need other plants?
Outside of beautiful simple snacks, Humming Hemp also works hard to educate people about hemp and health. Their wonderfully-designed blog has some of the best content I’ve seen on a snack site that wasn’t Snaktak.com.
There’s seems to be a connection between hemp enthusiasts and a desire to truly help the world. I have yet to encounter a hemp company that hasn’t invested serious resources in educational materials.
When you are spiritually synchronized with the earth, spreading the knowledge that helped you get to that point is a no-brainer. Spreading knowledge is the door fee for a higher spiritual realm.
Humming Hemp does a great spiritual service to the world by spreading nutrition and healthy information.
Snackability
Oh yeah, baby. Munch these things down fast. Throw one in your glove box. Slip one in your coat pocket. Dump a box into your gym bag. Go fuckin wild, gang. These snacks are certified.
Overall, hummingbars get a rating of 😄🌿💚
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