Thus, I turn my attention to protein bars and meal replacement type bars that are going to have less sugar and more protein, possibly even a good amount of fiber. What I’ve found is that the average protein bar isn’t that much different from the standard issue candy bar.
It’s actually sad how much sugar gets slipped into protein bars. They’re supposed to be healthy, but in an effort to make them taste good, they take the candy bar route of sugar coating the protein and fiber until they aren’t much different than a candy bar at all.
In my quest for a reasonable protein bar that would have a low Glycemic Index, I stumbled across the Snickers Marathon Nutrition Bar. Snickers is usually known for making famously unhealthy candy bars, yet the Snickers Marathon Nutrition Bar is actually pretty awesome by GI standards. It’s not perfect, but it manages to only have 150 calories, 7 grams of fiber, and only 9 grams of sugar.
The dark chocolate crunch is pretty delicious. As it turns out it’s the only variety of the Snickers Marathon Nutrition bar available that I can find. That brings up a great irony in the Snickers Marathon bar product line.
Snickers as a brand is a candy bar brand. Snickers is not a brand that people think of when they think of health food. Protein bars are usually regarded as health food in the same vein as protein powder or a meal replacement snack.
Making a protein bar with the Snickers brand seems like the fatal flaw for this line of fantastic products. In both the Marathon Nutrition lines and the Snickers Marathon Low Carb lines, they are almost impossible to find. I think this is partially due to the low carb diets fading from popularity, but that seems to be compounded by the Snickers branding.
What would have happened if Mars would have just called this product line “Marathon Bars”? That would be a much easier sell for health conscious crowd. It’s sad really.
It is possible to find Snickers Marathon Bars, but the varieties that are most readily available seem to be the energy and protein varieties. Both of these are much higher in sugar, which doesn’t work so well for my diet.
The nutrition and low carb varieties are much harder to find. I’ve found the nutrition variety at a local convenience store for around $1.90 a bar. That’s way more expensive than they need to be.
I haven’t had much luck finding the low carb and nutrition bars online. The best luck I’ve had were on eBay. Even still, it would be much easier to buy in bulk on Amazon or direct from Mars or some other wholesaler.
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