Reviewer Information

Name: Becki Stacy
Age: 32
Gender: Female
Height: 5' 3" (1.6 m)
Weight: 150 lb (70 kg)
Email address: beckistacy at comcast dot net
Location: Royal Oak, Michigan, USA


Background:
I got bitten by the backpacking bug in 1994 when I was a volunteer at the Grand Canyon. My first backpacking trip was the same week I arrived, with gear borrowed from trail crew supplies. My husband and I enjoy car camping and backpacking (we use a double-wall tent), mostly in Michigan. We've pared down our pack weight a little (a necessity for a recent 12-night trip with no resupply), and we are continually re-working our gear list to cut weight without giving up the luxury items we enjoy (such as food that involves more than boiling water).

Basic Product Information

A note about this report:
The ProBars that were first distributed to the testers several months ago have a slightly different recipe and look than the reformulated bars that are currently being distributed as the "Original Blend". The first version of the Original Blend ProBar has silhouettes of people engaging in various activities, and in this report I refer to this formula as version 1.0, or v. 1.0 for short. The reformulated (current) Original Blend bar has "Original Blend" on the label, and does not have the silhouettes of people on it. I refer to the reformulated bar as v. 1.1.

A Visit to the Website

The ProBar website is easy to navigate, has a clean look, and links to stores and online retailers that carry the product. It lists why the ProBar is better for you than other energy bars, and why they 'blend' rather than 'bake' the bar. The website covers everything, except for the ingredients and nutritional information on the bar itself! I had to follow a couple of the links to online stores before I found one that listed the ingredients.

The Ingredients V. 1.0

The website claims that the Probar is made of 17 whole foods, and on the same page they mention 15 guaranteed whole foods. This leads me to wonder if this is a typo, or if two of the whole foods aren't or can't be guaranteed. They also don't clarify which of the ingredients are the 'whole foods', and for those of us who don't shop at health food stores on a regular basis, what is the definition of a 'whole food'? I did a quick search on the FDA (United States Food and Drug Administration) web site, but couldn't find a government-approved definition of the term. Searching the Internet, I found varying definitions. The general idea seems to be that a whole food is as nature made it, without any processing such as grinding or removal of various parts (aside from the addition or removal of water, according to one site). I'm left wondering that if I peel an apple if that apple is not considered a 'whole food' anymore. But the basic requirements seem to be that the product can't have any other ingredient other than itself, has not been cooked or ground, and that no edible parts have been removed.

One thing that I noticed about the ingredient list (they have 15 by their count) is that the 'tropical mix', 'orange almond granola', 'hemp granola' and mueseli [sic] are considered individual ingredients. This makes it hard to determine the real primary ingredients of the bar. I decided to have some fun and see how many ingredients they had by MY way of counting... which is by individual item that can be physically picked out of the mix (I know it's hard to 'pick' out oils and syrup, but I think I've made my point; none of that 'granola x' as an 'ingredient')

The only ingredients on this list that can be broken down further (to my knowledge) are the oat-flour covered dates and the carob chips.

The way they label the ingredients leads me to believe they buy the granola mixes and the mueseli [sic] pre-made and toss it in. This isn't really bad (as long as it tastes good and I can understand what I'm eating- I'm not picky if my almonds are raw or not), just confusing. Especially when they have both organic/raw ingredients and regular ingredients.

When checking out granolas at my local health food stores, I found that most mixes that include crisp rice break down the rice into a couple of ingredients. Also, in order to 'crisp' the rice, it has to be processed somehow, which seemingly goes against the philosophy of this bar.

Three cases (12 to a case) of the ProBars were shipped to me at my office, along with a folder containing promotional material that reiterates all the facts and testimonials listed on the website.

Tempted as I was to rip into one, I carted all 36 home intact for a few experiments before I allowed myself to chow down.

Weighing In V. 1.0
The first test the unsuspecting ProBars had to endure was being weighed by my two digital kitchen scales (I thought I had lost my first scale, so a while back I bought a second, only to have the original resurface soon after buying the new one). One measures in eighths of an ounce and in two gram increments. The other scale measures in tenths of an ounce. When in 'ounce' mode, the two scales usually agree, so I decided to try both in the effort to possibly pick up a bit more accuracy with the difference in increments between the gram scale and the tenths of an ounce scale. All the bars were weighed on both scales, and on a spreadsheet I converted the ounces to grams, averaged the two gram measurements for the final weight, and converted that number back into ounces. I tried weighing the wrapper from one of the bars, and it didn't register on either scale. For my Field Report I'll save all the wrappers and see if I can get them to weight in, but I have a feeling the weight is very negligible in the big picture. I created graphs showing the quantity of bars received by grams and ounces.

Overall, 10 of the 36 ProBars were under weight (indicated in red in the graphs above). With the nature of the ingredients, I expected a variation, but nothing as large as I found. Personally, I don't mind that a few of the bars are a tenth or two of an ounce (a few grams) off the advertised weight, but the 2.4 oz (68 g) bars are missing 20 percent of the advertised product! I would expect that any food product company would have Quality Control measures in effect to prevent anything less than (I'm picking a number out of the air here) 90 percent of the listed weight from being put on the shelves at full retail cost. I'm sure that there would be a market for factory seconds, if offered at a lower price.

On the other end, the mean average weight was 3.1 oz (88 g), a little more than the advertised weight. The maximum weight I received was 3.8 oz (108 g). This is 127 percent above the listed weight.

I visited the FDA (United States Food and Drug Administration) website to see what they had to say about the matter, and found that according to the Code of Federal Regulations, Title 21, Volume 2, CHAPTER I, PART 101, Sec. 101.105, point (q): "The declaration of net quantity of contents shall express an accurate statement of the quantity of contents of the package. Reasonable variations caused by loss or gain of moisture during the course of good distribution practice or by unavoidable deviations in good manufacturing practice will be recognized. Variations from stated quantity of contents shall not be unreasonably large."

Apparently the FDA has more hard-and-fast rules about the positioning and size of the text that lists the weight (mentioned earlier on in the section) that it does about what is considered 'unreasonably large'. After weighing all the ProBars, I've gotten pretty good at telling which ones are too light, are about right, and those that offer more meal for the money.

Volume: Sink or Swim? V. 1.0
The second, and last, test that all the bars were subjected to was a volume test. This is a big deal for me on longer trips, since I've learned not to waste any space. With the ProBars nestled in their oversized wrapper this looked like wasted space might be a very real issue.

Because I lack lab equipment, I had to make do with what I had on-hand. Which was an 8 cup/2 liter measuring 'cup'. Volume was measured by submerging the hapless bars in water and noting the volume displaced. An unfolded paper clip was used to ensure the bar remained submerged. Said paperclip did not displace enough water in and of itself for me to notice when taking readings. The cup had 100 ml (3.4 fl oz) increment markings, so I had to eyeball the readings. My measurements aren't precise, but I think this test provides useful information despite not being able to get readings to the nearest ml. I converted the ml readings into cc and cubic inches for the graph below.

The wrapped ProBars ended up taking up 9.2 cu in (150 cc) to 12.2 cu in (200 cc) of space, with most on the higher end. I removed the wrapper from a 3.0 oz (85 g) bar and wrapped it in plastic wrap to determine the volume of a typical bar. The bar itself was approximately 4.9 cu in (80 cc) in volume. The wrapped ProBar takes up from 1.9 to 2.5 times the volume of the product itself.

My conclusion: For short trips, I probably won't bother to repackage them. But for longer trips, I'll have to repackage the bars. I attempted to see if I could use a vacuum-sealer (my latest kitchen toy) to suck the air out of the provided packaging, but I didn't have much success. The wrapper tears easily , and the vacuum-sealer won't vacuum the air out of this type of package anyway. However, I could re-seal the bag using the 'seal only' feature.

Overall, it smelled and tasted good. Not exceptional, but really just 'ok'. Compared with other mass-marketed energy bars, it was one of the better ones I have had. But by itself, as a regular food item, it tasted like a typical granola. When I read that the mix included peanut butter, and had an orange granola, I was wondering if I would be able to pick up hints of these wonderful foods. The sad fact is that I couldn't. Part of what I like about food is being able to pick up on subtle (or not-so-subtle) differences in flavors of the ingredients. Short of Cincinnati style chili (and that's due mainly to a complex blend of spices) I haven't seen a list of ingredients this long that I didn't need my husband (a chemical engineer) to decipher.

What it all boils down to is with so many ingredients, it's hard to pick up any particular taste. About the only taste that did stand out were the raisins. With such a long list, they also run the risk of losing potential consumers due to food allergies or dislikes. They have already done so by including peanut butter, since this is one of the more frequent food allergies in the United States. I could not taste the peanut butter, and surely another nut butter or other ingredient could fill in for any nutritional value that the peanut butter would bring. I'm scratching my head on this one, since the manufacturer was careful enough to include as many people as possible by making it a vegan product.

Another gripe of mine is the carob chip. I have not been a particular fan of carob since I overdosed on carob-covered raisins as a kid. I can eat them, but why bother when I can have real chocolate? I looked into the issue, and found out that vegan dark and semi-sweet chocolate is available. With the quantity of carob chips in the bar, the easiest way to tweak it for better flavor (in my opinion) would be to take out the carob and put in some chocolate. The raisins are nice, but I'd like to see more of other fruits. Personally I'd suggest cranberries, but almost anything other than raisins would be better.

From my taste-test, I think the ProBar could be one of those foods that is great for a short trip, but that I might end up not eating by the end of a long trip. Though it doesn't fall within the time frame for the Field Report, I have gotten permission from the Test Moderator to buy additional bars and amend my Field Report on how well they fare as a twice a day snack for ten days in a row on my trip to Isle Royale National Park this year. I have a sinking feeling that by day six I will be looking to swap snacks with fellow hikers. Stay tuned.

The first time I ate the ProBar, I had one serving (half the bar) for breakfast. It was the morning after a light dinner, and was the only food I had that morning. It didn't fill me up, and by the time my morning commute to work was over I wished that I had eaten the whole thing. My tummy didn't rumble asking for an early lunch, so at least it kept hunger pains away. The next morning I consumed a whole bar (again, I had a light dinner; two light hot dogs on light buns and pickle spears. When I have a 'light' dinner, I mean it!) and felt nearly full. It kept me going, even though I ate lunch two hours later than I usually do.

The bars are a little on the sticky side, but more of a 'tacky' than a 'gooey, all over your fingers' type of thing. A few pieces did end up stuck to my teeth, and I had to pick out one piece from my molars. I can bite into them fairly easily (better than the majority of energy bars that I have had), and I can easily rip off chunks, roll it into a ball, and pop it into my mouth. Yes, I'm one of those type of people that plays with her food. The pressure required to bite into the bar was sort of like biting into a piece of muskmelon that wasn't really ripe yet. It wasn't difficult to chew, but the consistency of the product required more chewing than I give to most foods. I froze the other half of the first ProBar, and after a day in the icebox it was considerably harder. It was difficult to bite into the frozen bar, but I didn't' feel like I was going to chip a tooth to gnaw off a piece. If I ever decided to take a winter trip and bring the ProBars along, I would cut them into bite sized pieces before I left.

All the packages (of both new types) appear to be of about the same volume. This time around I randomly selected five bars to serve in the sink-or-swim test. The selected bars all came in at about 175 ml (10 cubic inches). While there is still a bit of air in the packages, the overall extraneous volume has been reduced from the V. 1.0 bars.

Unlike the original thinner wrappers, the new thicker wrappers won't allow me to squeeze air out of the package. I can still re-seal (but not remove air from) the wrapper with my vacuum-sealer. The thicker wrappers are an improvement in my opinion, since they don't rip as easily as the old wrappers did.

The Original Blend bar still tastes like an average granola to me, though I can now actually pick up the taste of peanut butter. I like the taste of the new bars better than the first version, though if my testing of these bars holds true to that of the original formula, it would take a strenuous hike for me to really enjoy eating it.

I really like the taste of the Whole Berry Blast bars. The addition of strawberries and blueberries has made this bar something I could actually look forward to eating for breakfast or as a quick lunch.

I made the mistake of breaking into a Whole Berry Blast bar several hours before dinner. I wasn't very hungry at dinnertime (though my husband was), and ended up eating a lot less than I usually did. An original Blend bar served as breakfast this morning, and sustained me quite well until lunchtime.

During the period of time given for the testing of the new batch of ProBars, I will be on a couple overnighters and one 2-3 night backpacking trip in Michigan's lower peninsula, as well as my (usually) weekly dayhikes. I will see how well they keep me going throughout the day, and if they make a good on-trail breakfast as well as snack. Will I acquire a taste for the Original Blend bars, or will they be something I can't stand to eat after a few days on a long haul? How will the Whole Berry Blast bars taste on a strenuous hike? I will also be giving a few lucky bars a 'heat test', to see how well they fare in hot conditions.