Protein Bars - Everything You Need to Know

Today I would like to discuss the issues I have with protein bars. Protein bars are not something that you should be eating constantly. There is a specific time and place (not really a specific place, but. . . ) for protein bars, and it is not 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. One of my biggest pet peeves is when I'm in third period and I see someone drinking a protein shake, or eating a protein bar. I don't like this because you are only supposed to eat protein bars (or protein drinks) after you exercise a lot. If you have the right kind of protein, you can drink it first thing in the morning, and thats okay. But, you should not eat protein bars as if it's kale. 

First of all, protein bars need some extra stuff to get all of that protein in there. Most protein bars have an insane amount of calories, sugar, and fat, which is okay to eat if you just burned a lot of calories and need the amino acids (those come in proteins) to build up your muscle. Protein bars/drinks are not something you should eat all the time if you want to gain muscle without doing anything, because it'll have absolutely no affect, and probably make you fatter. 

These are literally so delicious. Courtesy of Penny Pinching Mom

But, protein bars are a good thing to have when you're on the go, and you're starving and you have to have a snack. You just have to pick the right kind of bar. A bad protein bar to eat in this situation would be something like a PowerBar, which has a crazy amount of protein only fit for a bodybuilder. A good bar to eat, that I have found, is something like Nature Valley's Protein bars. They have enough protein to fill you up for a little bit, but not a bunch of extra sugar and stuff. But, be warned, even though these are better protein bars doesn't mean than you can eat 20 of them at a time- you still have to be careful, and mostly eat them after some kind of physical activity. So, don't be that kid stuffing 50 grams of protein in their mouth before 10 in the morning. At least wait until lunch.

~Mia