Product Name: Kashi GoLean Roll Bars
Company: Kashi
MSRP: $18.49 / 12pack Click To Save 15% On Kashi Roll Bars!
Availability: High (Online stores, retail outlets & Health Food Stores)

Fellow bar loves and health geeks who want something on the go, I have an announcement to make. Your long days of searching for the perfect protein/health bars will probably never come to an end. So… keep searching. But in the mean time, Kashi’s line of GoLean bars have a “roll” version and it’s something that might command a second look from you.

A while back I reviewed their “chewy” version of Kashi’s GoLean bars and was thoroughly disappointed. It was too high in sugar and the taste made it hard to eat the whole bar in one sitting. Kashi gave me the silent treatment after that review, I guess the truth hurts. And… it’s not like I didn’t try and help them improve their own product. But anyways, I don’t live in the fucking past, so let’s try out this other version and see what’s up.

Product Claims:

Designed to help you stay satisfied. All natural. Contains 12g protein and 6g fiber. A chewy peanut butter center is surrounded by smooth chocolate and then rolled in roasted peanuts, crunchy soy crisps and whole grains. Optimized Glycemic response: GoLean Roll is specially designed for an Optimized Glycemic Response to help balance your body sugar. The Glycemic Response is optimized by the type of carbohydrates and unique combination of protein and fiber.

Slow release carbs: GoLean Roll contains whole grains, nuts and low glycemic carbs to deliver a steady stream of energy, helping you avoid sugar spikes and crashes. Protein 12g: GoLean is high in protein. Protein helps give you a lasting feeling of satisfaction and is essential for muscle development. Fiber 6g: GoLean Roll is an excellent source of fiber, which promotes a lower glycemic response and helps you feel full longer.

First Impressions:

Right off the bat, these looked a helluva lot more appetizing than the chewy bars. Kashi sent me two flavors: Fudge Sundae and Oatmeal Walnut. At 55 grams, they seem to be a decent size for a snack and can easily be consumed in between meals without being too heavy.

Now let’s take a look at the nutritional facts *crosses fingers*.

We have 1.5g of saturated fat, and 0g of trans fat (good). Then we have sodium… 250mg (ouch). I don’t know why there is such a fascination with adding a ridiculous amount of sodium in foods today. There is no reason a 55g bar should have 250mg of fucking sodium in it. NONE! Lets move on to carbohydrates, of which there are 27g. This can easily make this bar a decent post-workout contender. After that we have 6g of fiber (Good), 12g of protein (Not bad) and 13g of sugar (Meh).

Let’s take about the protein first. 12g isn’t bad, in fact for most people this is a good amount, specially since I can see these bars being eaten as a mid-day snack. What I have problem with is the TYPE of protein. Soy isolate. Soy is slow releasing but as a man, I wouldn’t bother with it. There is some whey isolate in there as well, but judging from it’s position in the ingredient list, there are only trace amounts of it. This won’t make much of a difference.

Now let’s talk sugar. This one ingredient completely killed the validity of the Chewy bars from Kashi. Well at 13g, the roll bars have about 2x the amount I’d recommend but it’s also the usual average that I’ve found in most health bars (with the exception of those that are made with sugar substitutes).  Anything around 10-15g is usually the average for such bars. The only place where you will find 5g of sugar or less, is in bars that are focused on muscle building or just plain heavy on protein. I’m sure there are exceptions as the amount of bars out on the market is pretty insane, and it’s safe to say I haven’t seen them all.

Real World Results:

The bars are covered with a special blend of nuts and other good “stuff”. For the Fudge Sundae bar, I’m guessing it was covered in peanuts, while the Oatmeal Walnut flavor was covered in (from what I could visually tell) Almonds, Peanuts, Oats & Walnuts. Good stuff.

After staring at this thing for a few seconds, I took a giant bite. It has a decent combination of crunchy and chewy-ness to it. In fact, Id go ahead and say that it’s quite satisfying. The overall feel is still quite dry so again, I’d strongly recommend that you drink a full glass of water… or the top of your mouth will feel like the surface of Sahara.

Here’s where things get interesting… although it’s got 13g of sugar, you really can’t taste it. The sweetness is quite mild and it tastes like bar that probably only has 5-6g. I like that. I think the culprit here is the caramel. You see, in the center of the bar is a protein roll, and you know what those taste like right? Dry and chewy. This roll is covered in a layer of caramel and then dipped in the nutty stuff. Now, why couldn’t they NOT do that and replace the caramel with dark chocolate? Less sugar and everything would still stick.

Then we have the after-taste… Which isn’t bad on the Fudge Sundae bar, but is quite unpleasing on the Oatmeal Walnut bar. It starts off tasting good and leaves behind a taste that could only be replicated by a product that was super stale. Worse, is that this after-taste decides to set up camp and hang around your taste buds for a while. The fucking thing just won’t go away! I found an easy work-around for this problem though… COFFEE!

Conclusion:

First, let me start off by saying that this bar is a HUGE improvement over their chewy type. It’s got a decent taste to it (Hey! I was able to finish the whole bar in one sitting this time!), the stats aren’t too shabby and at $1.50 its a pretty good deal. Keep in mind that I was only able to try the 2 flavors out of the available 5 (Chocolate Peanut, Chocolate Turtle, Caramel Peanut, Fudge Sundae, Oatmeal Walnut) so that after-taste problem can probably be avoided.

Now, should you try these? This is where I gota sit and scratch my head. Its really fucking confusing because on one hand, it’s not a bad choice as a post-workout bar for people who are really active (like me, for example). I can handle the 13g of sugar, the 27g of carbs while obliterating the 12g of protein, so once in a while I’d eat it over the very-sugary PowerBars. Plus its a LOT cheaper.

But on the other hand, I would be hard pressed to give it to someone who goes for a light jog only 3 times a week and already has a off-balance eating lifestyle. Then there is the soy protein (which is great for women, but less than ideal for a manly man!)

Hmm… (fast forward 15 minutes)

OK! I got it. This bar would be great for the highly active woman with a busy lifestyle. For the rest of us though, it can be a “once in a while” type thing (because eating a snack such as this is better than missing a meal). As for the rating,  I’d give the Fudge Sundae bar a 3/5 while the Oatmeal Walnut gets a 2/5 for having a horrid after taste… but because I can’t do half stars and because I’d personally never buy a crappy flavor I’m going to award the Go Lean Roll bar a final score of 3. Respectable, but there is an obvious room for improvement.

In the end, the search for the perfect bar is still on!

To Being Fit & Sexy 4 Life

-FitJerk

FlawlessFitnessBook

P.S- There is one more GoLean bar that is left to be reviewed, and that’s the “Crunchy” type. Stay tuned for that review.

Random Question: If money was no object, what would your dream health bar look like? List the stats and let the creative juices (You do have some right?) flow…

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© 2009 – 2010, By FitJerk. FitJerk.com is a division of Flawless Fitness Media – All Rights Reserved – No part of this post is to be republished without author consent under any forms of media (including print, internet, video or audio transcription). Doing so is a violation against copyright law and should be punishable by a punch to the face. All images are copyright of their respective owners.

Tired Of Looking Ordinary? Click Here And Get FJ To Design A Fitness Plan Just For You! FREE Initial Consultation.

Product Name: GO LEAN Chewy Protein & Fiber Bar
Company: Kashi
MSRP: $18.49 (For box of 12)
Availability: Medium ( Some Stores & Online)
Flavor: Peanut Butter & Chocolate, Oatmeal Raisin Cookie

A while back I wrote an article about protein & energy bars, and in it I gave you some guidelines to make sure you select bars that are actually worth a damn. Today were going to test out Kashi’s Go Lean Chewy bars. Their “GO LEAN” brand of bars come in chewy, crunchy and roll types… all of which are going to be reviewed in the future, but for today, we’ll focus on the chewy ones.

I got to test out the following two flavors: oatmeal raisin cookie and peanut butter + chocolate. Before we get knee-deep into the review, let’s check out the claims…

What Kashi Has To Say:

“Our original GOLEAN Chewy bars are naturally sweetened, soft chewy snack bars made with Seven Whole Grains and Sesame and covered in chocolate. GOLEAN Chewy bars are high in protein and fiber to help you stay satisfied.

Everyone’s favorite combination of real creamy roasted peanut butter and rich chocolate is simply divine.

The bars are made with seven whole grains to give you a steady stream of energy. High in protein that is essential to muscle development and made with 6g of fiber to help keep you satisfied.”

First Impressions:

The first thing I noticed was the size… at 78g these bars are no walk in the park. Some of you can even curl these babies! Their hefty size could easily replace half a meal or an entire snack since they pack 290 calories. I also like the fact that they have a good 6g of fiber in each bar. So far so good…

Unfortunately, once you take a peek at the nutrition label, this is where things start to become worrying. With 280mg of sodium, 4.5g of saturated fat and a whopping 31g of sugar… It instantly falls into the category of a “candy bar”. And no… The measly 13g of protein isn’t enough to even consider this as a “healthy snack”.

GoLean_Bar_Label

Think about it, in ONE bar you pretty much get the same amount of sugar as in a can of pop. Comon Kashi, haven’t you ever heard of Stevia? It could be a life-saver here. Another thing I wanted to point out is that the majority of the protein is from soy, not whey. Lame.

On the flipside, there are a few good things to note, specially Kashi’s proprietary flour mix. It contains: oats, long grain brown rice, rye, hard red winter wheat, triticale, buckwheat, barley & sesame seeds. Good shit, I like that. For those who are all hoo-haa about grains and how people should avoid them because of gluten… Please save me the speech. Cutting down on grains or eating properly fermented grains is a good idea, cutting out grains completely isn’t. The low-glycemic response is invaluable for providing a constant stream of lasting energy without a huge sugar spike. Unfortunately for these Go Lean bars though… The sugar spike can’t be avoided. *shrugs*

Taste & Real World Results:

First up is the peanut butter bar – I’m a big fan of peanut butter and for the sake of the review I was willing to look past the ridiculous amount of sugar and bite into this bad boy. The look was decent… But the chocolate coating had this “cheap” smell to it, kind of like the smell from one of those dry pieces chocolate you used to get in your bag during Halloween. You can instantly tell they tried to save cost or chose a shitty source for chocolate. No good.

GoLean_PeanutButter

The chew is pretty satisfying… It’s not too hard, and not too soft. Also, it (thankfully) didn’t get stuck to my teeth – so if you have a date to hit up, you can rest assured that you won’t have to toothpick yourself to death. The only problem I found was that it’s VERY dry. To be fair, you all should know by now that these bars are nutrient dense and therefore should be taken with a full glass of water (Kashi states this on the label). BUT… It would be nice to have something that is edible in case you are waterless at some point. Perfection is a beautiful thing. Too bad its so damn rare.

Next was the oatmeal raisin bar – Now I love oatmeal so again, I was looking forward to this one. Overall the taste was good, (better than the peanut butter chocolate) and the smell was enticing. I couldn’t help but notice the yogurt coating on this bar… This is un-fucking-necessary! Not only could this have saved Kashi some cash, it would have saved everyone from the high sugar count.

Golean_Oatmeal_Raisin

The oatmeal bar was slightly more “moist” than the peanut butter one, but I still HIGHLY recommended that you do drink a full glass of water along with it. The after taste was also better but it hangs around in your mouth for WAYY to long. Kind of like those losers that keep talking to you even after you’ve given them every hint that they’re not wanted. Yeah… So you can bet it gets annoying fast.

Golean_Oatmealraisin

I know I’m harping on the sugar thing, but here’s the REALLY disappointing bit. The sweetness is so fucking overwhelming… I couldn’t finish these bars in one sitting. I mean they are filling, which I don’t mind but oh man, the sweetness is TOO MUCH.

This is a very common problem with companies, I can understand when you try to mask the taste of fiber, but such an over-kill is complete jabrony! Guess I should’ve seen this coming. Oh and not to mention that this high-sugar nonsense makes you thirsty beyond belief. Parents, feed this stuff to your kids if they don’t hydrate properly… Just realize that it will make them fat.

Conclusion:

Here’s the really funny bit: All Kashi has to do is drop the sugar amount below 10g, replace the atrocious soy protein with 20g+ of quality whey and bring the saturated fat down to 1g. If Kashi does this, they will have a SERIOUS bar on their hands. Like 4-star worthy serious. No joke. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case and as such… I can’t give it more than a 1, especially since it’s marketed as a “GO LEAN” bar. Trust me, if anyone keeps eating these, they’ll “GO FAT”.

Here’s a better alternative to the Go Lean Chewy bars: A chicken breast and a can of Coke. If you are planning on ingesting 30+g of sugar ANYWAYS, at least this will be a more pleasant experience.

Now this isn’t the end, there are 2 other types of GO LEAN bars left… The “roll” and the “crunchy” ones. Stay tuned to see how they turn out. In the mean time let’s see how Kashi responds. Hopefully they don’t cry about it and fix the problems because this thing does have potential… Really.

Question - What do you think Kashi should do to turn this product around? Post your thoughts below… Show me you’re alive!

To Being Fit & Sexy 4 Life

-FitJerk

Flawless Fitness Book

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© 2009 – 2010, By FitJerk. FitJerk.com is a division of Flawless Fitness Media – All Rights Reserved – No part of this post is to be republished without author consent under any forms of media (including print, internet, video or audio transcription). Doing so is a violation against copyright law and should be punishable by a punch to the face. All images are copyright of their respective owners.

Tired Of Looking Ordinary? Click Here And Get FJ To Design A Fitness Plan Just For You! FREE Initial Consultation.