The Good: Good taste, Fairly good ingredients
The Bad: Comparatively expensive, Could be healthier/more beneficial for active people.
The Basics: The Clif Crunch Bar Chocolate Chip Granola Bars are a thoroughly unextraordinary granola bar with an unfortunately inflated price tag!
Clif Bars seem to be all the rage where I live. So, as someone with a physically demanding job who is suddenly more interested in general health and fitness, I figured that Clif Bars might be of value to me on my long nights of work. So far, though, I had been underwhelmed by the Cool Mint Chocolate Clif Bars (reviewed here!) and the Clif Builder’s Chocolate Mint Protein Bars (reviewed here!). As a result, I turned to the Cliff Crunch Bar Chocolate Chip granola bars. My thought was that maybe simpler would be better for the company.
To their credit, the Clif Crunch Bar Chocolate Chip Granola bars are simple. To their detriment, they cost about three times as much as comparable granola bars for no discernable reason.
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 a light, convenient form that travels well. For exercise enthusiasts, outdoorspeople, and/or dieters, the Clif Crunch Bars can be a real asset for meeting those needs . . . if one wants to pay more than for, say, Nature Valley or Quaker granola bars.
The Chocolate Chip Bars come in a 1.5 oz. granola bar that is foil-wrapped. Each package comes with two bars and the two bars together represent a single serving. Predictably hard and grainy, Clif Crunch Bar Chocolate Chip bars are 3 5/8” long by 1 7/16” wide by 3/8” thick granola bar. These granola bars come sold as single bars or in boxes of 12.
Ease Of Preparation
Eating Clif Crunch Bar Chocolate Chip Bars is not a real challenge. After removing the wrapper, simply pull out the bars and take a bite off them. There is no particularly complicated equation to eating this granola bar. This is an entirely ready-to-eat food!
Taste
The Chocolate Chip Clif Crunch Bar has a faint aroma of honey. When one inhales deeply over the bar, they pretty much suck in all the scent until only the grainy base remains. The smell of the wheat and oats of the granola bar is not at all unpleasant, though it is not particularly inviting, either.
In the mouth, the Chocolate Chip Clif Crunch Bars are predictably dry and only mildly sweet. As they linger on the tongue, the sweetness that seems akin to either a very light touch of honey (honey is present in the middle of the ingredients list) or a very subtle blend of sugar and cinnamon (a spice which does not appear in the ingredients) fades within seconds and all that remains is the grainy flavor of oats and wheat (there is no wheat specifically in these bars, but the combination of grains seems to net a flavor similar to wheat). The flavor that is not at all present is chocolate. That is not surprising to me as I counted five chocolate chips in one bar and seven in the other! As a result, these granola bars end up with a very generic grainy and sweet flavor that is entirely underwhelming.
This granola bar leaves a strong, dry aftertaste in the mouth and I found myself drinking a considerable amount of water while eating them and afterward. Without significant water intake, the dry aftertaste faded within twenty minutes.
Nutrition
Clif Crunch Bar Chocolate Chip Granola bars are intended as a supplemental food, as snack, as opposed to some of their other, more substantive meal replacement bars. These 1.5 oz. bars represent a single serving and are surprisingly underwhelming on the nutrition front. Made primarily of organic rolled oats, organic dried cane syrup and organic sunflower oil, the ingredient list actually has completely recognizable ingredients. Still, this is not an all-natural food product and these granola bars were produced on equipment that forces them to add a disclaimer about soy, peanuts, tree nuts and wheat. To the credit of Clif, they do not source ingredients that are genetically engineered!
Clif Crunch Bar Chocolate Chip Bars have 190 calories, only 70 of which are from fat. A bar represents 12% of one's RDA of saturated fat, though they are cholesterol free. As well, they are surprisingly low in sodium, having only 105 mg per serving. They also have three grams of protein and dietary fiber. There was nothing in the ingredients list that indicated this snack might not be Vegan compliant!
Storage/Cleanup
Clif Crunch Bar Chocolate Chip Granola bars do not vary in taste regardless of when they are eaten or how they are stored. Unopened, they have a decent shelf life around eight months. These hard bars generate quite a few crumbs, but those may easily be brushed off a messy consumer! Otherwise, cleanup is simply throwing the foil wrapper away when you are done with the granola bars.
Overall
Clif Crunch Chocolate Chip Granola bars are the definition of average, but their more expensive nature makes them unworthy trying.
For other reviews of healthy foods, please check out:
Marathon Smart Stuff Crunchy Trail Mix Snack Bar
Bolthouse Farms Perfectly Protein Salted Caramel Latte
Sin-Free Sugar
4/10
For other food and drink reviews, please visit my Food And Drink Review Index Page for an organized listing!
© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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