Name: STEVEN H. MILLER
Age: 53
Gender: Male
Height: 5'8" / 1.73 m
Weight 180 lb / 83 kg
Email address: metaphorce(at)earthlink(dot)net
City : Pacific Palisades, CA, USA

Backpacking background:
I began backpacking in the early 1980's, trekking in the mountains and deserts of California. I stopped backpacking after I got married in the late 80's. Now my sons are 10 and 14, and I've had to resurrect my equipment, my skills, and many long-neglected muscles. I recently took my first backpacking (as opposed to car-camping) trip in 20 years. I tend towards short tenting trips, pack too much and end up carrying over 40 lb. / 18 kg in the desert (including water). I'm looking for ways to cut it down without sacrificing creature comforts. I go car camping with my younger son, usually bringing a more spacious tent.

PRODUCT INFORMATION:

Product: Probar Nutty Banana Boom
Manufacturer: Probar LLC
website: http://www.theprobar.com
Year of Manufacture: 2006
MSRP: not given
Listed Weight: 3 oz / 85 g
Measured Weight: variable from 3.10 oz / 87.7 g – 3.27 oz / 92.7 g, in twelve bars sampled. (See list below in Product Description) Average: 3.20 oz / 90.6 g
Size:
Bar: 3.75 in X 3.75 in X 0.75 in / 9.5 cm X 9.5 cm X 2 cm
Wrapper: 3.87 in X 6 in / 7.3 cm X 15.2 cm

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION:

The product arrived on May 31, 2006: two cases of Nutty Banana Boom – 24 bars in all. This was actually twice as many as I expected. They were in good condition, and appear to be quite fresh.

The Probar Nutty Banana Boom in its aluminized plastic wrapper

Since the company's website doesn't show the bar itself (only the package), I didn't know what the bar would be like. I vaguely expected something blended and manufactured. I couldn't have been more wrong.

From the wrapper:

"High performance whole nutrition food"

"Rich in raw foods" "Endurance – Recovery – Meal Replacement"

"All Natural – No Preservatives – Blended Not Baked – 15 Whole Foods – 100% Vegan"

"Your body craves the whole food nutrition nature provides. Your taste buds crave food that tastes good. I've developed the Probar® to satisfy both! Optimize your health and athletic performance with this unique blend of 15 whole natural foods. Probar® offers you the most delicious and nutritious sports nutrition meal replacement available.
-Art Eggerston, Founder"

"Allergy information: Product contains tree nuts and seeds and packaged on equipment that processes legumes (peanuts)."

Personal description:

The Probar is a dense square brick of raw seeds, nuts, fruit, and carob and banana chips, stuck together with a dense, slightly gummy mixture of what appear to be largely carbohydrates. Based on my consumption of three sample bars, I would have to say that the exact constituents of any particular bar seem fairly variable. Sometimes you encounter a large banana chip, other times there are no discernable banana chips present. The same goes for any other of the large, easily recognizable ingredients: almonds, coconut shreds, etc. It is fairly solid, and when cool, does not easily crumble. When warm, the sticky substances become considerably softer and the bar crumbles much more readily.

The bar itself, unwrapped: a dense collection of whole nuts, whole seeds, and fruit pieces

The weight of the bars is variable. The first bar I weighed was considerably heavier than the listed weight, so I weighed twelve of them. I found a variation from 3.10 oz / 87.8 g to 3.27 oz / 92.7 g. The average 3.20 oz / 90.6 g is 7% higher than the listed weight. No bar I weighed was at or under the listed weight of 3 oz / 85 g. This is good in terms of value-for-money. Possibly a caution to ultralight gram counters or vigilant weight-watchers.

Weights of twelve sampled bars:
3.10 oz / 87.8 g
3.13 oz / 88.8 g
3.15 oz / 89.2 g
3.19 oz / 90.3 g
3.19 oz / 90.5 g
3.20 oz / 90.8 g
3.22 oz / 91.2 g
3.22 oz / 91.3 g
3.22 oz / 91.4 g
3.23 oz / 91.7 g
3.24 oz / 91.9 g
3.27 oz / 92.7 g

The package is considerably longer than the bar itself. The package can be folded over, but it contains a certain amount of air (or some gas – unknown) so that there is a "pillow" effect whether it is packed flat or folded.

The "pillow" effect: when the extra wrapper is folded over the bar, the air inside creates a slightly puffy pillow around the bar

The "pillow" effect: when the extra wrapper is folded over the bar, the air inside creates a slightly puffy pillow around the bar

The back of the package contains a lengthy list of ingredients. I have a real issue with this list. US law requires an ingredients list that not only tells what's in a food, but requires the list to be arranged in the order of amounts: the ingredient that accounts for the most weight of the portion is given first, and the one of the least weight is given last. The idea, I believe, is give the consumer not only an idea of what he's consuming, but also some rough guide to the quantitiy of each ingredient he's consuming. The list on the Probar® Nutty Banana Boom package is written in the smallest type I've ever seen on a food ingredient list. It is also filled with parentheses, "ingredients" that are actually mixtures and require sub-ingredient lists contained in parentheses. There are even parentheses contained within parentheses. There are three different "ingredients" called either "Granola" or "Granola Mix". I include the ingredients list for your decoding pleasure:

"INGREDIENTS: natural unsalted peanut butter (peanuts), organic brown rice syrup, organic barley malt syrup, fruit & nut mix (organic raisins, organic sunflower seeds, juice sweetened papaya, juice sweetened pineapple, dates, cashews, unsweetened coconut, pumpkin seeds, brazil nuts), granola mix (oats, grape concentrate, expeller pressed canola oil, almonds, oat bran, natural orange oil, natural Vitamin E) granola mix (organic oats, organic evaporated cane juice, expeller pressed canola oil, crisp rice (organic brown rice flour, organic evaporated cane juice, organic molasses, sea salt), organic flax seeds, organic oat solids, hemp seed), granola (rolled oats, raisins, corn flakes (milled corn, evaporated cane juice, barley malt syrup), rolled rye, organic brown crisp rice (organic brown rice, organic malted barley syrup), almonds, apples, epasote, organic cardamom seed, organic fennel seed, organic fenugreek seed, organic nutmeg), organic sunflower seeds, chopped dates (dates, oat flour), organic banana chips, organic unsweetened coconut, organic flax seeds, raw cashews, organic brown sesame seeds, carob chips (whole grain malted barley and corn, fractionated palm kernel oil, carob powder, soy lecithin), raw almonds, natural banana flavor."

Here is the list, reformatted in a more readable fashion and at a more readable size, to give a better understanding of just how convoluted this list really is.

"INGREDIENTS:

natural unsalted peanut butter (peanuts),

organic brown rice syrup,

organic barley malt syrup,

fruit & nut mix

(organic raisins,
organic sunflower seeds,
juice sweetened papaya,
juice sweetened pineapple,
dates, cashews,
unsweetened coconut,
pumpkin seeds,
brazil nuts),

granola mix

(oats,
grape concentrate,
expeller pressed canola oil,
almonds, oat bran,
natural orange oil,
natural Vitamin E)

granola mix

(organic oats,
organic evaporated cane juice,
expeller pressed canola oil,
crisp rice:

(organic brown rice flour,
organic evaporated cane juice,
organic molasses, sea salt),
organic flax seeds,
organic oat solids,
hemp seed),

granola

(rolled oats,
raisins,
corn flakes:
(milled corn,
evaporated cane juice,
barley malt syrup),
rolled rye,
organic brown crisp rice:
(organic brown rice,
organic malted barley syrup),
almonds,
apples,
epasote,
organic cardamom seed,
organic fennel seed,
organic fenugreek seed,
organic nutmeg),

organic sunflower seeds,

chopped dates:
(dates,
oat flour),

organic banana chips,

organic unsweetened coconut,

organic flax seeds,

raw cashews,

organic brown sesame seeds,

carob chips:

(whole grain malted barley and corn,
fractionated palm kernel oil,
carob powder,
soy lecithin),

raw almonds,

natural banana flavor."

(end of ingredients list)

To my mind, this list in extremely confusing, so much so that I feel it really subverts the spirit of the law. The product seems to be full of good stuff, but it's really impossible to get any clear notion of how much it's got of which ingredient. I'm not suggesting that Probar needs to reformat the list the way I have above. I am suggesting that a straightforward listing of the single ingredients, ungrouped and in their proper proportional order, would be a lot more helpful.

INITIAL IMPRESSIONS:

In the spirit of "setting it up in the living room before taking it on the trail," I have eaten three of these bars in and around my home, at leisure, not hiking or working out. I ate the first one as a desert after a normal meal. I ate the second on an empty stomach, in the morning. Since I was unable to write this report as soon as I planned, I was able to perform one of my planned tests with the third bar, which I ate after leaving it in my car for a week that saw daytime temperatures ranging from about 70 F / 36 C to about 95 F / 53 C. It should be noted that these bars were not consumed under "workout" conditions, not while hiking or doing any other strenuous exercise. I was just hanging around the house or driving my car.

Practical Considerations:

The bar is packaged in a well-sealed, aluminized plastic wrapper. I found it reasonably easy to rip the end open with my fingers. However, the wrapper then tends to rip very readily down its entire length. For the purpose of being able to eat part of the bar and use the package to keep the rest of it until later, I found it preferable to slice the end off the package with a pair of scissors. Using it in this manner, I appreciated the extra length of the wrapper, as it wrapped very easily around half the bar and could be secured with a rubber band to close the bar in effectively.

Taste and Related Aesthetics:

The dominant aroma when I first unwrapped the bar was of banana. I found it sweet and pleasant, not so pronounced as to be overwhelming.

The taste of the bar is also sweet and pleasant. The specific flavor is very variable depending on which ingredients happen to be in any particular bite. This is a dense food, composed of ingredients that cover a wide range of sizes. The smallest seeds and things are pretty well distributed throughout the bar. The large ingredients, such as whole almonds, banana chips, carob chips, dates, or pineapple chunks, only appear here and there. (I've encountered no identifiable almond pieces, only whole almonds) Because it is dense, I found it desirable to take small bites. A small bite will either contain no almond at all or else it is dominated by an almond. The same goes for the pineapple chunks, banana chips, etc. The result is that each bite tasted very different, if I paid attention to what I was eating. The attention was well rewarded. It became like a game, trying to identify the different flavors. I also found that the more I chewed it, the more different flavors were revealed. The flavors are layered.

An extreme closeup of the bar, showing a whole almond and a variety of seeds and fruit pieces

The one flavor I never identified was Peanut Butter. I don't smell it, I don't taste it. If it didn't say so on the label, I wouldn't know it was there. I'm sure it is there – it's at the top of that devilish ingredient list - but I don't pick up on it.

I enjoyed eating it. The combination of overall sweetness, of many and surprising flavors, and varying textures, makes it a fun experience.

One bar that I ate had been recently in the sun, and it was quite warm. This appeared to enhance the fruit flavors quite noticeably. It was truly scrumptious. It also made the bar slightly more crumbly – not crumbly enough to be messy, but just enough to make it easy to break off small chunks. The heat also made the carob chips melt; they were messy, but there weren't enough of them to pose a problem. That particular bar had been sitting in the car (still sealed), getting heated by the sun and cooled by the night, for seven days. This had no apparent effect on the flavor. It was fresh and delicious.

Digestibility:

As I said, it's a dense food. I found that when I ate an entire bar for dessert after a regular meal, it soon felt like a lump of lead in my stomach, and continued to feel that way for about half an hour. I concluded that it was way too heavy a food for me to happily consume an entire bar after a meal.

I then tried an entire bar in the morning. Even on an empty stomach, it felt pretty heavy in my guts, but this time the feeling passed off quickly, after about only five minutes.

For my third bar, I decided that discipline was the key. I resolved to eat only half the bar and see how that affected me. This time, I felt a passing wave of lumpiness once, but otherwise it sat quite well, and as mentioned previously, it had been warmed and was particularly delicious. That, in fact, was my downfall. I wrapped the other half in the original package put it in my pocket, and vowed not to give in its siren call for at least an hour. Hah! Half an hour later, the taste of the warmed bar loomed large in my mind, and I couldn't resist. I still tried to eat it slowly, in small bites, and really intended to have only a tiny bit and leave the majority for later. Hah!! Fifteen minutes after I began the second half, I'd consumed it all. I felt slightly leaden, vaguely sick. I think it was not only the density of raw nuts and things, but also the intense sweetness.

Further tests will follow in the Field Report.

TEST PLAN

Description of locations and conditions:

1. Backpacking in the mountains around Big Sur, elevations ranging from about 400 ft / 125 m to about 3600 ft / 1100 m, hopefully in forested land if we can find it. The terrain is said to be steep, but other than that I do not know what to expect. This area is well known for fog and rain, and I would expect some precipitation. Not sure what the temperature is like.

2. Back-packing in Sequoia National Park, hopefully getting to Pear Lake which is at about 9200 ft / 2800 m (if I make it that far). I would expect daytime temperatures as high as 95 F / 35 C in the height of summer. This canyon has a glacier at the top of it, and can get very cold at night, but I am unsure of exact temperatures. The trail getting there is a rather rocky ridge along the rim of a canyon, partially exposed, partially under trees. The area around Pear Lake itself is largely exposed rock, but there is some forest further on until you get above the treeline.

3. Car-camping in Wheeler Gorge and/or Rose Valley in the Los Padres National Forest. Wheeler Gorge, at about 1800 ft / 550 m, is a pleasantly forested area where I expect to spend a lot of time walking up and down in the stream. I am unsure of the daytime temperature there in summer, though previous experience in nearby spots would suggest it could reach 90 F / 32 C or even higher. Nights are probably around 50 F / 10 C.

4. Dayhiking around home (Santa Monica Mountains in West Los Angeles) and on trips to the beach.

TEST CRITERIA:

I think it deserves to be tested both as a snack food and as a meal replacement.

The criteria I intend to test are:
a) Taste and digestibility
b) Nutritional and satisfaction value of the bar
c) Durability when packed and carried
d) Shelf-life and viability after being carried several days in the heat

Testing Strategies:

TASTE & DIGESTIBILITY:
The criterion of taste can be tested anywhere, but I am particularly interested how it tastes and digests at different altitudes. I am also specifically interested in how it tastes and digests when you're using it as a primary nutrition source, and not eating much else. Therefore, I plan to try:

a) eating the bar(s) for breakfast before hiking, with basically nothing else until lunch

b) Having a normal (camp) breakfast and then eating the bar(s) for lunch

These two tests will also allow me to see how well it sits on the stomach in the absence of other food.

NUTRITIONAL VALUE AND SATISFACTION:
The test for these two is the same test as the above, but the things to be noted in this context are different:
a) does eating a bar satisfy my feelings of hunger until the next meal?
b) Will a bar sustain my strength while hiking, climbing, etc.

DURABILITY WHEN PACKED AND CARRIED:
Bascially, I'm going to try shoving them into a few different places in the backpack and seeing if they are still in one piece when they come out. Or, if not in one piece, are the pieces/fragments/crumbs still edible? I intend to carry some other bars in protected ways (in a hard box or a Nalgene bottle) to compare. This is a test of both the construction of the bars and the durability of the packaging.

SHELF-LIFE AND VIABILITY:
Carrying food for a week without refrigeration can alter or even ruin some things. If the bar can survive this kind of exposure, its use as a primary nutrition source on long trips could be significant. Unfortunately, I do not plan any trips this long, so I am going to have to simulate the conditions. I have already left a bar (wrapped) in my car for a full week in Los Angeles in our "early summer" weather. (See above) I intend to repeat this test for a longer period, using testing procedures similar to the ones described for testing Taste & Digestability.

SUMMARY

My first impression is that the Probar Nutty Banana Boom is good tasting and full of healthy stuff. It is dense enough to make me suspect it provides a lot of nutrition. However, I wonder if one can eat enough of it to replace a meal without feeling weighed down or slightly sick. It's certainly a great snack, but it takes some discipline not to eat too much of it.

THINGS I LIKE:
Tastes excellent
Exciting to eat and discover new flavors
Wrapper is good for re-wrapping partially eaten product

THINGS I’D LIKE TO SEE IMPROVED:
The ingredients list should be cleaned up
I think the bar is slightly too sweet
Because of melting in the heat, perhaps the carob chips should be deleted from the mix

I want to thank Probar LLC and Backpackgeartest.org for giving me the opportunity to participate in this test, and try out these really scrumptious bars.

Read more reviews of Probar gear
Read more gear reviews by steven miller

Initial Report

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