“Radiance from the inside out”
11g protein | 13g Fiber | 3g Sugar
Gluten Free | Non GMO
Net carbs: 6 g Added sugars: 0 g
Overall rating: 😁😋🤔
Flavor
Rawrev surprised me more than any other product so far. It looked like any generic chalky protein bar, but upon biting into it I found a soft, moist gooey delight.
These people took some real ingredients, created a balanced recipe, and hit the ground running. Peanut butter chocolate inspires absolutely no one, but Rawrev hit the nail on the head.
If you’re gonna do something uninteresting, at least do it well.
This well-balanced snack is sweet enough to taste like a dessert without being that unhealthy. Reese’s cemented their ownership of PB&C flavor a long time ago, and it’s great to see healthier ways to get the same basic flavor experience.
Isn’t it mysterious how the same flavor can appear as candy in one setting and healthy in another? Remove the protein mix and this is basically a reese’s cup. But this looks, feels, and tastes healthier.
What amazed me most about this bar, though, was that the chocolate chips were still gooey as though they’d just been baked. This was extremely perplexing because it’s a frosty day and I don’t have my heater on.
Is that what makes these chocolate chips italian? Did the Italians figure out how to make chocolate that never hardens? Maybe there’s some secret property of soy lecithin I’m unaware of that prevents solidification.
These raw vegan protein bars are a surprisingly enjoyable snacking experience 🙂
Packaging appeal
Honestly, this is nothing special. It looks like a beige toyota camry.
It’s a fresh pack of manila folders, simultaneously boring and full of promise. It’s a new tinder match who has the same mass-produced flannel crop top as your last 4 matches.
That’s all to say it looks good but doesn’t really excite me. Or anyone most likely.
I’ve seen Transformers and I don’t get excited when new sequels come out.
I feel the same about this, and a lot of other energy bar wrappers.
The only redeeming factor is their delightful slogan “Radiance from the inside out.” This is kind of cheesy, but it lines up well with their food-as-medicine mission.
I might have to fail this company for using the word superfoods though. “Superfood” is avague, unscientific marketing term people throw around to make shoppers think the food is healthy without giving them any real information.
Which ingredients are the superfoods? And what is a superfood in the first place?
There’s no clear metric for what is or isn’t a superfood. Mostly it seems to refer to whatever fruits and veggies that are most aesthetically pleasing on wellness influencer’s IG posts.
Ingredient quality
For the most part, this is a great recipe. The only two questionable ingredients are Isomalto-oligosaccharides (Prebiotic fiber from tapioca) and soy lecithin.
I had never heard of Isomaltooligosaccharides (IMOS) until this week. I reviewed four bars with this particular ingredient back-to-back.
This is a contentious ingredient. It is a sweet starch that improves the flavor and texture of products like these. I don’t like it because it’s a highly processed sweetener/filler.
Keto folks don’t like it because it spikes your blood glucose just like regular sugar. Even though it is technically a fiber, it doesn’t hold together well enough to resist digestion. Once it’s in your body, you digest it basically the same as sugar.
Dietary fiber is actually insoluble in your digestive tract. It serves as a vehicle to carry carbs and other waste products out of your intestines.
If the fiber is soluble, it doesn’t confer the health benefits of dietary fiber. My guess is that here, the manufacturers wanted to increase sweetness without adding sugar.
Texture is important with energy bars, so a lot of companies use IMOS and lecithins to improve it.
Lecithins are, “…yellow-brownish fatty substances occurring in animal and plant tissues which are amphiphilic – they attract both water and fatty substances, and are used for smoothing food textures, emulsifying, homogenizing liquid mixtures, and repelling sticking materials.”
Their ability to attract both water and fat is probably key to their efficacy in these products. Especially with the virgin coconut oil they use, it’s gonna be difficult to make things combine smoothly.
I must have gotten lucky, though, because Dirtballs combine well without the need for any lecithins, IMOS or other binders.
Company practices
Rawrev has a noble mission. According to Alice Benedetto’s founder bio (which appears to have been written by someone else and then attributed to her) she started this company to promote the idea of food as medicine.
This is one of the most important revolutions in health. Western medicine has its place, but for purposes of wellness and longevity, more holistic eastern practices elevate us to new levels.
It’s impossible to understate how influential convenience is on people’s buying decisions. People chose a lot of inferior products simply because they’re more convenient. Hell, that’s the entire fast food business model in one sentence.
It’s so important to have convenient healthy foods like this. Even though the Tapioca starch is nutritionally dubious at best, this blend of proteins and real ingredients is great. They have multiple nuts and seeds along with the pea protein, plus coconut oil to get those sweet MCTs.
Education is also important, and Rawrev does a halfway decent job of that. There are a few useful blog posts here, but Alice could invest a lot more energy into the content.
A trained physician could produce a lot of great informative content to get people on the website and empower consumers to make good choices.
Content marketing is most effective when its a regular activity. Infrequent blog posts can often come across as half-assed and inconsistent.
Snackability
Ohhhhh yeah! This is my favorite section. No thinking required. How snackable is this?
In the sense that it’s only one bar per package, the snackability is somewhat limited. However, the size is great so that it would be filling for easily satisfied snackers, and satisfying for those with larger appetites.
Portion size is important and some bars are way too small.
Overall, Rawrev Glo protein bars get a rating of 😁😋🤔
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