TFS Review: CLIF Bar
Posted May 26th, 2007 at 12:36 PM by Paul Petersen
Section: Nutrition, Product Reviews, Vegetarianism, Special Features, TFS Reviews
Product: CLIF Bar
Price: Retail $1.39 to $1.69 each, $15 for a box of 12
Rating: Excellent 8.8/10.0
Pros: Enjoyable taste, inexpensive, easy to digest, many flavor varieties, vegan/vegetarian friendly, 70% organic ingredients
Cons: Texture is not immediately appealing
Overall: CLIF Bars offer the best bang for your buck in the world of energy bars. Not only is the taste tolerable, but most flavors are actually very good, although like many bars it suffers from a peculiar texture. CLIF Bars are great to consume before and after races and workouts, with few digestion problems. In addition, they contain no animal products, and are filled with soy protein and carbohydrates.
I remember my first experience with energy bars, well over 10 years ago. I recall being somewhat curious and even a little excited about this new concept. I thought to myself, Will it boost my performance? Will it give me boundless energy?
My eager optimism crashed as soon as I began it to eat it. I managed to scarf down the dense, chewy mass, and proceeded to get a gut bomb that lasted the duration of my run. In the early days, some of those bars were terrible!
Then I discovered CLIF Bar. Conceived as an idea in 1986, debuted in 1992, and incorporated in 1997, CLIF Bar has chewed its way to the top as a leading maker of energy bars.
It is now ubiquitous in bike shops, grocery stores, and race goodie bags. Along with its rich history, CLIF Bar upholds many environmental, health, and social ideals via its philosophy and operations, and also through support of numerous outside organizations.
CLIF makes claims that its bars are a great-tasting, convenient source of energy for any activity and that they deliver the boost you need without unwanted crash and burn. This is marketing that any energy food company would make, but do they hold merit in the case of CLIF?
Below is the nutritional label for a CLIF Bar (chocolate chip peanut crunch flavor). What is immediately noticeable is the low ratio of sugars to total carbs (20g sugars/43g total carbs), the low fat content (6g), and the high protein content (11g). As a semi-vegetarian, I am happy to see that I can get nearly a quarter of my daily protein from one bar, and the relatively low sugar helps substantiate CLIF’s claim for a long, slow burn rather than a sugar rush. In addition, looking closely at the vitamins and minerals at the very bottom, I am surprised by some of the quantities. It’s almost a multi-vitamin in some respects!
Effectiveness - 9 - CLIF Bars impress me most with how much they satisfy my appetite and by how easy they are to digest. Typically a full bar or half a bar will get me through my morning run without leaving me tired or hungry. It’s no wonder either, as 250 calories and 43g of carbs is a hefty dose of energy for such a small bar.
I have consumed CLIF Bars immediately before runs and even during runs with no digestion problems. This has endeared CLIF to me as the ultimate workout and race-day food, since I can count on it to fuel and fill me without upsetting my stomach or making me feel “heavy.”
As a result, CLIF Bars have been part of my race-day routine through nine marathons and numerous other races. I typically eat one bar right after I get up (about three hours before the race), and half a bar an hour before the race. This tops off my already high glycogen stores, giving me enough fuel for about the first 20 miles of the marathon. I have been happy with using CLIF as my marathon-day fuel, and I think there is credulity in their claims of sustained energy through a “steady increase in blood sugar levels followed by a gradual decline.”
But if my own anecdotal information is not enough, actual studies have confirmed CLIF’s claims:
A study conducted in 2001 by the Human Performance Laboratory at St. Cloud State University, Minnesota, upheld Clif Bar’s nutritional claims. The study indicated that Clif Bar energy bars do “provide a sustained, moderate increase in blood sugar levels, crucial for enhancing athletic performance. The findings also suggested that nonathletes who eat Clif Bars can expect a sustained energy boost during hectic workdays and busy weekends.” The results of this study were presented at the annual conference of the American College of Sports Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland.
This study, along with my own experiences, convinces me that the all-natural ingredients and ratio of sugars to total carbs make CLIF Bars an efficient performance food for endurance sports.
Taste - 7.5 - Compared to many other energy bars I’ve consumed over the years, most CLIF bars are pretty good. I really enjoy some of the newer flavors, such as lemon poppyseed, iced gingerbread (seasonal), and, my absolute favorite, peanut toffee buzz. That being said, if someone offered me a choice between a candy bar and a CLIF Bar…based on taste, I’ll take the candy bar!
A CLIF Bar is indeed an energy bar, which isn’t “recreational food” by nature. By “recreational food,” I mean “food that you would order in a restaurant.” Like other energy bars, the texture of a CLIF Bar takes some time to get used to, and always requires a fair amount of water to get it completely down the throat. On backpacking trips or long trail runs, I often get “CLIF’ed out” to the point where I just can’t eat any more of them. Part of that is my fault because I’ll chow through two or three bars a day.
But in the world of energy bars, CLIF reigns near the top in taste. I’ll take CLIF any day over Balance or PowerBar, a sentiment helped along by CLIF’s wide a
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Tags: clif, clif bar, energy bar, organic, product review, review, snack bar, vegetarian
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May 29th, 2007 at 10:33 am