Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Filling, But Not Overly Minty, Clif Bar Cool Mint Chocolate Bars Are Pretty Good!


The Good: Very healthy, Tastes good.
The Bad: Very expensive, Could be more minty.
The Basics: A great way to fill up fast, Clif Bar Cool Mint Chocolate Bars are pricy, but worth it!


Recently, my wife and I were out and she saw Clif Bars on sale. She was miffed when I told her that I had never reviewed any Clif Bars, so she picked up a few in order to fill me up and give me more material for my food reviews! I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the Cool Mint Chocolate Clif Bars she picked up for me. She knows I am a huge fan of all things Chocolate Mint, so this was a pretty natural place for me to start reviews of Clif Bars!

We only picked up the Clif Bar Cool Mint Chocolate Snack Bars because they were on sale and she thought it would be a great meal substitute for me on days when I was not in the mood to cook while she was at work. She was right, but at even $1.00/bar, these are at the border of “too expensive.”

Basics

Clif Bar is the company that merchandises its foods for active people who are on the go and need a lot of nutrition in light, convenient form that travels well. For exercise enthusiasts, outdoorspeople, and/or dieters, the Clif Bars can be a real asset.

The Cool Mint Chocolate Bars come in a 2.4 oz. chocolate bar that is foil-wrapped. Each bar represents a single serving and Clif Bar Cool Mint Chocolate bars are a mealy 2 1/4” wide and 3/4" tall by 3 1/4” long bar that looks like an oatmeal brownie. The textured top of the bar has lines of frosting on it. One bar is one portion, so this is very easy to get into on the portion front! These snack bars come sold as single bars.

Ease Of Preparation

Eating Clif Bar Cool Mint Chocolate Bars is not a real challenge. After removing the wrapper, simply pull out the bar and take a bite off it. There is no particularly complicated equation to eating this chocolate bar. This is an entirely ready-to-eat food!

Taste

Opening the wrapper on the first Clif Bar Cool Mint Chocolate Bar, I was surprised by how strong the mocha scent of the bar actually was. The scent is almost entirely of chocolate, with almost no mint scent to it.

With the bold scent of chocolate in my nose, I allowed myself to get my hopes up for the Cool Mint Chocolate Snack Bars. The soft, grainy bar is very chocolatey, with a faint mint flavor in the frosting. The chocolate flavor dominates with a very light peppermint flavor that is embodied almost completely as an aftertaste. The mint flavor appears as the chocolate bolus is swallowed and it endures for about two minutes.

After two minutes, the Cool Mint Chocolate Clif Bar has a fairly dry aftertaste that lasts in the mouth for several minutes.

Nutrition

Clif Bar Cool Mint Chocolate Snack Bars are intended as a supplemental food or to replace a full meal when one is on the go. These 2.4 oz. bars represent a single serving and they have a boatload of nutrients in them. Made primarily of organic brown rice syrup, Clifpro (a proprietary blend of nutrients intended to energize), and Organic Rolled Oats, the ingredient list does become a mess of preservatives and vitamins near the end. This is not an all-natural food product and these snack bars were produced on equipment that forces them to add a disclaimer about milk, soy, wheat, and peanuts.

Clif Bar Cool Mint Chocolate Bars have a stunning 240 calories, only 50 of which are from fat. A bar represents 8% of one's RDA of saturated fat, though they are cholesterol free. As well, they are surprisingly low in sodium, having only 170 mg per serving. They also have ten grams of protein and at least ten percent of twenty-one different vitamins and minerals! This contains caffeine and while it is not vegan compliant, it is marked as Kosher. This is a wonderful healthy snack!

Storage/Cleanup

Cliff Bar Plan Cool Mint Chocolate Bars are amazingly tasty regardless of when they are eaten or how they are stored. Unopened, they have a decent shelf life around eight months. We purchased a ours in the mid-January (2013) and they have an expiration date of October 2013. If they melt, they will stain, so consult your fabric guide if that happens. Otherwise, cleanup is simply throwing the foil wrapper away when you are done with the chocolate bar.

Overall

Clif Bar Plan Cool Mint Chocolate Snack Bars are delightful, though they could stand to be more minty and less expensive for my tastes!

For other reviews of healthy foods, please check out:
Bolthouse Farms Perfectly Protein Chocolate Mocha
Peeled Organic Apricot-a-lot
Ocean Spray Pomegranate Craisins

7.5/10

For other food and drink reviews, please visit my Food And Drink Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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