hey guys! it's alyssia. today i want to talkto you about protein bars and specifically how to choose a healthy protein bar. so whydo we use protein bars? they're quick, they’re convenient ways to get protein in and theytaste really good; they fool you into thinking they're almost a candy bar. so i personallyuse protein bars as a post workout snack. you don't have to use them for that. somepeople just choose to use them as dietary supplements, if they're trying to get moreprotein or pre-workout snacks are fine but i use them as post-workout snacks. that'smostly because they're kind of pricey; protein bars aren't cheap. they're usually $2-$4 abar so i kind of justify it as it's my treat. it's my recovery. after a hard workout i deserveit. so that's when i eat them.
today i'm going to share some popular brandsof protein bars with you and talk about how i decide, how i make the decision for whatmakes a healthier or less healthy choice of a protein bar. so, we’re going to kind ofgo through these, starting with the ones i think are less healthy choices and i'll explainwhy. and then we will end with my favorite protein bars, the ones i love to eat everyday. so, keep in mind as i go through this that these are all generalized suggestions.so all of this advice may not apply to your lifestyle. my personal fitness goals are buildinglean muscle and yours may not be the same. if you're more into weight loss, a lot ofthis be still relevant because even if you're trying to lose weight, you want to usuallymaintain muscle mass or build a little bit
of muscle mass. so, but you know, you decidewhat you want to take and leave and apply to your lifestyle as you see fit. every bar wants you to think it is healthy.every protein bar wants you to think it is the healthiest choice offering you - eitherthe most protein or nutrition or whatever it's claiming to give you. but the truth isthat most of them are not really any better than a candy bar in disguise. so if you aregoing to spend the money and the nutrients then - if you're going to spend you know yourcalories and your macro nutrients on eating something - make sure that it's somethingyou actually want to put in your body. if you're not going to pick up a candy bar, youmight not want to pick up some of these protein
bars. so, the first thing to look at whenchoosing a protein bar is how much protein there is, right? because that's why you’re eating it. youwant to get protein. now of course, that's going to depend on your size, your fitnessgoals, bla bla bla. but, generally speaking, at least for post workout, you want a barthat has around 20 grams of protein. so that's just kind of a good rule of thumb. it couldhave a little bit more or less depending on what you're looking for but when you pickup a bar you want it to have around 20 grams. when you walk into the store, you go to theprotein bar aisle and you're picking out your protein bar you want to pick up the bar andlook at the nutrition label. and so i have
here a kind protein bar. so these bars, probablyeveryone has seen them. their advertises are pretty clean, they're pretty clean. and they'vegot good, generally good ingredients in them. but here i have a protein kind bar and herei have a regular kind bar. so this one, peanut butter dark chocolate protein - dark chocolate,nuts and sea salt, only 5 grams of sugar. so both are making health claims. this oneis claiming to be a protein bar. when i look at the nutrition label it has a whopping 7grams of protein. this not-protein kind bar has 6. so you buy a regular kind bar you get6 grams of protein. you buy the protein, you get 7. not really a protein bar. can thisnot fit into your lifestyle? no, maybe there is some way that it can fit in. maybe youwant a bunch of good carbs or fat or 9 grams
of sugar, but if you're looking for protein,this is not the bar to eat. even though it's telling you it has protein in it, it doesn'thave that much. the luna protein bars. you got regular lunabars - 9 grams of protein. luna protein bars - 12 grams. so there's a three gram difference.this is not really much better for you or it's not really more of a protein bar justbecause it says protein on it. there's only three more grams of protein than in the regularluna bars. so these are protein bars i would say not to eat. even just starting at thebasic rule that you want protein in your protein bar. so the next thing to look at after youcheck the protein content is calories. so it doesn't really matter if it has 20 gramsof protein if it has a million calories. right?
so some of the protein bars that i don't likebecause of how many calories compared to the amount of protein they have are the following:cliff builder protein bar. so it has 20 grams of protein, but it's 270calories which isn't terrible but it's more than you need. kind of a general rule of thumbi've come to go by - it's not a real rule, it's like my own made up rule, but you canfollow it if you want - is aiming for about ten calories per gram of protein, around there.it could be a little more, a little less but...so if you just add on a zero. if you got 20 gramsof protein, you want it to be around 200 calories. thereabouts, maybe a little less, if you canfind it. power crunch. now these i want to talk about later but protein to calorie ratio,you've got 14 grams of protein and it's 205
calories. so you're not getting quite as muchbang for your buck, protein wise. these bars, met rx big 100, this is a mealreplacement bar so it's actually not technically a protein bar. but it advertises, it sayson the front 28 grams of protein, which it does have. 28 grams of protein. but the wholebar is 380 calories. so that's a lot of calories for 28 grams of protein. but keep in mind,it's a meal replacement bar so it also has a little bit more carbs. this would literallybe an entire meal. now for some of us this is maybe more than we would eat in a wholemeal. maybe you don't need the whole thing. maybe you'll only need half of it. rememberthat meal replacement bars and snack bars and energy bars are all different than proteinbars.
muscle milk. these bars, 320 calories for25 grams of protein. so, on the high end. and the zone perfect. these are deceiving.it's only 210 calories but it only has 14 grams of protein. so again, not enough bangfor your buck. okay, so you've looked at the protein, you've looked at the calories, nextyou want to look at the carbs. now again, carbs are really going to vary based on yourfitness goals. for post workout and building lean muscle you do want carbs in your proteinbar. so there is a huge disconnect between the idea of carbs being good or bad or theenemy. they're not the enemy. carbs are good. specially post workout you need them to replenishand recover and rebuild. how many do you need, that's the question.so if you're on a weightless journey, you
might need less carbs. may be, maybe not.but for me, i like to stick to about a one to one ratio, maybe even a little bit morecarbs than protein. one to one protein to carbs or one to one and a half protein tocarb. so, another bar that i don't know if you've seen around. i saw it at the healthfood store. go macro. it's a vegan protein bar so may be, i mean i don't know a lot aboutvegan protein bars but maybe it's - i mean i'm assuming it's harder to get the proteinin there - this maybe an okay option. the problem is, there's 37 grams of carbs for10 grams of protein. so that's like a four to one ratio, carbs to protein for 260 calories. if you're really going for protein, aim for20, aim for a ratio closer to one to one.
okay, so next macro nutrient we want to lookat is fat. it can be a little bit controversial because you don't want a ton of fat in yourprotein bar. especially if it is post workout but some fat is good. so, you want to lookfor less than around ten grams per bar. of course this is all relative to the amountof calories. you don't want to just look at the fat and then not look at the caloriesor carbs or protein. but with all the other general rules we've been making around 20grams of protein, around 200 calories, around 20 to 30 grams of carbs, you want, i’d sayless than ten grams of fat. so this bar, these protein crunch bars, they'rereally good but they have a lot of fat in them. they have 12 to 14 grams of fat andit's about equal to the carbs and the protein.
so it's not really a good balance for a proteinbar. it's more like an equal parts protein - fat - carbs bar. as an alternative to acandy bar though, it's great. and it tastes just like a kit kat. the next thing to talkabout, after we've had all those macro nutrients, are sugar and ingredients - sugar is an ingredient.and bars that aren't really protein bars that make you want to think that they are. here'sa bar that i found at the store. full bar, it is clinically proven to help you lose weight. i have no idea how because when i look atthese stats, it's 170 calories, 4 1/2 grams of fat, 28 grams of carbs and five grams ofprotein. so not only are those stats pretty much terrible because usually when you wantto lose weight you want to eat a little bit
more protein and little bit less carbs, generallyspeaking. and this is the antithesis of that. the first ingredient - oh i guess it's notfocused - but just trust me, it's brown rice syrup which is just a sneaky word for sugar.so, ingredients count. ingredients are really - may be not to everyone they count - butto me, i like to look at the ingredients and know what they all are and know that they'reall going to benefit me. i don't want to eat something that, you knowi don't want to put it in my body if it isn't going to do me any good, especially if i'meating it as a nutritional supplement. cliff bars. everyone thinks these are protein barsbut they’re not. there's no, there's ten grams of protein in this, for 240 caloriesand 43 grams of carbs. so usually i mean,
i don't know the exact history of this barbut i think it's for mountain climbers or rock climbers or whatever. that's what theguy's doing on the cover. so it's probably more like an energy bar. energy bars usuallyhave a lot of carbs because it's for when you're doing an activity. but this is nota protein bar. so this is not your ideal post-workout snack.and even the cliff protein bar, this one same company. this is their protein version. ialready told you i'm not nuts about it. 22 grams of sugar in this and, how much in thisone - 21 grams of sugar in that. that's a lot of sugar. especially for muscle building.we really want to avoid that much sugar if we can. almond joys. these have 20 grams ofsugar. that's less than this bar - 220 calories,
this is 270. 26 grams of carbs, this is 30.so really the only place that this beats the almond joy is in protein. but that's becausethey put a lot of protein in it coz it's a protein bar, right? and honestly looking atthese nutrition labels, this has more ingredients than the candy bar. so, is the almond joy a better choice? i’mnot going to tell you to go eat candy instead of a protein bar but i'm saying this is oneinstance where you're pretty much picking up a candy bar instead of a protein bar. lunabars. everyone thinks they're really healthy. they taste okay but the ingredients - soyrice crisps, soy protein isolate in organic rice flour, organic toasted oats- which isrolled oats in organic dried canned syrup
- at least it's organic. organic roasted soybeans, organic brown rice syrup - which is sugar. also, remember, i've said this beforein my videos but the ingredients have to be listed in the label by their prevalence byweight. so whatever ingredients are first, are more prevalent. that means they are the most prevalent ingredientin the entire bar or whatever product you're looking at. if sugar or syrup or brown ricesyrup or organic brown rice syrup or any of those other names for sugar are the firstingredient or towards the top - in one of the first two or three ingredients - thatmeans sugar is used a lot in that bar. that's not what you want. that's a candy bar. larabars.there's a lot of hype about them because they're
clean. the ingredients - cashews, dates, chocolatechips, bla bla bla. pretty good ingredients and very few. i like to see that. but justbecause this is a bar making health claims doesn't mean it's a protein bar. all barsaren't created equal, right? so this one is claiming it's a good source of fiber, andhas three grams of fiber out of the 28 grams of carbs. and one bar is equal to a quarter cup of fruit.well you're probably in this instance better off eating an actual piece of fruit or a quartercup of fruit and you'll get more fiber from that. and it'll probably taste better. it'sreally not fair for me to say that because i've never actually tasted one of these. but- maybe i should try right now. i'll just
taste it right now. i guess i can't returnthis one. this is chocolate chip cookie dough. so, things about those bars, they use ingredientslike dates and cashews which are good clean ingredients but remember, cashews still havea lot of fat, dates still have a lot of sugar. and even though i like to choose cleaner ingredients,sugar is still sugar. power bars. another example of an energy bar.this is not a protein bar. now power bar does have a protein bar. same company but thisis the energy bar, this is the protein bar. so know the difference. so if you're lookingfor post workout or protein supplement, this is the way to go. even though, actually idon't really love this bar. this bar has 12 grams of sugar in it which is just not necessary.even though it does have 20 grams of protein,
25 grams of carbs, 210 calories, 6 grams offat. all the other things sound pretty good. but it has 12 grams of sugar, only 4 gramsof fiber and it has a ton of ingredients on the ingredient label. and that's kind of like what i boil down toif i'm like, 'okay, this hits almost on my criteria.' i look at the ingredients and ifthere's stuff i don't know and if i really can't count all of the ingredients on my fingersthen i nix it. alright. hopefully they'll let me return that still. skinny girl. i'venever tasted these but i've tasted their vodka and it's pretty good. don't put that in there.first of all, ingredients before i even see the nutrition label. ingredient number one:organic brown rice syrup. sugar. 180 calories,
8 grams of fat, 25 grams of carbs. we're goodso far but protein, 7 grams. so it's not advertising itself as a protein bar but it's making alot of other health claims like it's natural, it's kosher, it's high fiber. yeah, if you consider 5 grams of fiber, high.and it's only got 7 grams of protein. i would say this ain’t going to make you skinny,girl. atkins. low carb. that's what atkins is all about. right? there’s 23 grams ofcarbs in this. now, 9 of those are from fiber which is pretty good. one of those is fromsugar. 11 from sugar alcohols. now sugar alcohols aren't terrible. they’re not metabolizedas carbohydrates which is why they don't count in the net carbs. and also, 250 calories,17 grams of protein and 14 grams of fat. i
know atkins is all about lower carb and higherfat but that just seems a little high. alright, special k protein bars. this protein bar onlygives you 10 grams of protein and it's 170 calories. so, definitely not quite hitting the mark.plus there's 3 1/2 grams of saturated fat out of the 4 1/2 grams of fat in the bar.now the worst thing about the special k protein bars - and really, all the special k products- is the ingredients list is like 3 1/2 miles long. it's so many ingredients. i don't knowwhat 90% of them are. but a lot of them end in ‘ose’ which means sugar or some sortof sugar. this bar has 15 grams of sugar and 10 grams of protein. so there's more sugarin it than protein. what's the point of eating
this? going back to candy bars, these powercrunch - i've never actually eaten this - i just saw it. but i was so intrigued, i waslike oh my god, it's like a candy bar. it's chocolate with nuts in it and it's ahundred calories and 5 grams of protein and 8 carbs and 6 grams of fat. but they trickyou because it's actually two servings in this bar. so it's 200 calories and 12 gramsof fat and 16 grams of carbs and it does have 10 grams of protein which is better than acandy bar but still, other than that, it's really about the same. so maybe it's morenutritious. i do know what most of these ingredients are, which is good. but again, macro nutrientwise, not much better. so we have come to what are the good choices. we’ve talkedabout all of these terrible choices of protein
bars. what ones can i actually eat? so thetop three that i would say are worth eating would be these three. so you've got pure protein, think thin andquest. now really, i only eat one of these protein bars and it's quest. but if i couldn't,for some reason, get quest bars, i would say these are probably your next best bet. thereasons i don't eat these are mostly ingredients. so this pure protein bar has a lot of ingredientsin it. it also does use sucralose - which is splenda - which is fine. a lot of proteinbars use splenda but where i can avoid it, i try to. and i don't know what a lot of theother ingredients are. but you get good stats. for 200 calories you get 20 grams of protein,18 grams of carbs and 5 grams of fat. so,
pretty good. and they taste okay. they don'ttaste great but they're like manageable. i don't feel like it's a treat after my workoutthough. the think thin bars. i've never actually tastedone of these but the stats - 230 calories, 20 grams of protein, 25 grams of carbs, 8grams of fat. everything macro nutrient wise is good here. zero grams of sugar becauseyou have twelve grams of sugar alcohols. so if you know you're someone that can handlesugar alcohols and it doesn't bother your digestive system then this could be an optionfor you. the reason i don't choose this is there's only two grams of fiber. so out ofthose 25 grams of carbs only two of them are fiber. and that is the exact - well one ofthe many - reasons that i end up choosing
quest. quest bars. this is cinnamon roll flavor.it's one of my favorite flavors. this is cookie dough, chocolate chip cookie dough flavor.also one of my favorites. i also love white chocolate raspberry, doublechocolate chunk, cookies and cream. i think those are my main favorites. am i missingany one? they're all pretty good but those are my favorites. the stats on these are amazing.you get, on the cinnamon roll one, as an example, for 170 calories you get 20 grams of protein,25 grams of carbs, 6 grams of fat - none of that is saturated fat - and of those 25 gramsof carbs, 17 grams are fiber. dietary fiber. so in all these other bars that i showed youtoday, the max that we saw was like 5 - 5 grams of fiber. generally you see 2 to 3.but in quest bars, this is 17 grams of fiber.
net carbs - total net carbs in this bar isthree because it only has one gram of sugar and 5 grams of erythritol which is a sugaralcohol - a natural one. so this bar for me is a win. on top of all the stats it tastes freakingamazing. it tastes good plain. i like to just carry them with me in my bag. but also, they'rereally good heated up. so in the microwave or in the oven - if you bake them, toasteroven, whatever. and there's a lot of recipes. if you've never seen the quest 15 second recipes,now is the time to check it out. the chocolate chip cookie dough. 190 calories, 8 grams offat, 21 grams of carbs, 21 grams of protein. again 17 grams of fiber. you just can't beatit. what is their secret? i don't know. but
the other great thing about these - so wetalked about all of those macro nutrients, the calorie ratio, the carb to protein ratio- is all good. the ingredients are also awesome. they're super clean. they're pretty much thecleanest protein bar you can find. they're just delicious. so, there you have it. allof the protein bars. how i make decisions on which ones i want to consume based on theirmacro nutrients, their ratios, their ingredients and at the end of the day, the only one ieat is quest. that doesn't mean it's the only good one but it's the only good one for me.because i do love quest bars so much i thought it would be fun to make my own 15 second recipe,#15secondrecipe. so thank you for watching. make sure you subscribe, like this video andshare it with a friend. maybe it'll help someone
make a healthier choice on their protein bars.stay tuned for next week. we have another two-ingredient takeover recipe coming up.there's only two left in the series. so make sure you check it out. bye.