Are You Trapped Behind These Bars?

Today I'm taking on a trend that I once enthusiastically took part in.  I used to have a book delivery job at my University, and on my delivery shifts I'd always take along an "energy bar."

Everyone is familiar with these things.  Back then pretty much the only choice was Powerbar, which came in Chocolate or Peanut Butter (both which shared the flavor profile of "nasty").  But I'd look on the back of the foil package and see I was getting 300% of my daily thiamin, 130% of my folic acid, and so on, and I'd feel pretty good about myself.  Plus, delivering all those heavy books with the school van was hard work, I needed the energy boost, right?

Well, 10 years later, and about 20 pounds lighter, I can see the folly of my youth.  The energy bar is just another misappropriated health product that was never intended for a mass market. 

Here's the history of two famous energy bar brands, the aforementioned PowerBar and its competitor Clif Bar, lifted from Wikipedia:

"Maxwell started the PowerBar company with his girlfriend, Jennifer Biddulph, a nutritionist who later became his wife. He came up with the idea of an energy bar after dropping out of a marathon at the 21-mile mark, at about the segment of the 26.2 mile event known among runners as "The Wall", where experts say the body ceases burning carbohydrates and begins burningmuscle tissue instead."

"While on a 175 mile bike ride founder and CEO Gary Erickson was eating energy bars and decided he could no longer take another bite due to the taste. He developed Clif Bar as an alternative to the many poor tasting energy bars on the market."

Did you notice something there?  The PowerBar guy was running marathons.  In fact he was on the Canadian Olympic Marathon team.  And the Clif Bar dude was on a 175 mile bike ride when his little lightbulb went off.  These guys were serious athletes performing near the extremes of human endurance.  And they invented super compressed calorie dense foods that were portable and packed a serious punch for systems depleted and starting to fail.

And yet today these products have proven so lucrative that they are being pitched as a healthy "pick you up" as you whiz through your busy day of dropping off the kids, going to meetings, cranking out that report, and hitting up yoga on the way home from work.  Clif Bar's female version, the ubiquitous Luna Bar, has little splash graphics on their homepage that change each time you go there.  Try for yourself! I've seen so far graphics of stylized women lying on the couch, grocery shopping, hula hooping, doing yoga in the park, and hanging out with friends.  I must have missed the Olympic marathoner and the 175 mile bike rider.

I don't care how mischievous your kids or or how hard your yoga session, you are not burning enough calories to warrant a 200-400 calorie midday "snack" to get you through to dinner.  The recipe for these bars hasn't changed much over the years.  A a blast of sugar followed by a bricks worth of carbs to get you over that 150 mile mark. Except now as they try to gain more market appeal with Chocolate Covered Raspberry Drizzle topping or what not there is even more saturated fats and processed junk going in than ever before.

The same thing happened with Gatorade and its ilk in the early 90s, a drink meant for athletes seriously pushing their bodies was moved over to a market or people who wanted to be like those athletes without all the hassle of actually exercising.  Now these energy drinks are consumed in vast quantities as a "healthy" alternative to sugary colas. (Guess what suckers, a bottle of Powerade has as many calories as a can of Coca Cola).   Hey, the number one tennis player in the world drinks it, why wouldn't it be appropriate for an active young guy like myself? Well, sorry dude, playing video games and surfing porn doesn't exactly warrant replenishing your electrolytes. 

The funny thing is, the designers of these products know very well that the vast majority of people have no need for this kind of supplement, but they won't be caught dead breathing a word about that.  So it's up to me.

If you are a regular person doing moderate and even strenuous exercise, you never need to eat an energy bar.  It will just add on excess calories, making the gains you made during your training a wash.  And if you are a desk worker or homemaker who eats these things as healthy snacks, you need to get off the crack.  The only way these could be worked into a diet is if you had one instead of a meal, and that would be a terrible trade off.  To give up the natural nutrition of fresh food for one of these sugary factory made carbo-bombs would be insane.  They look healthy and natural but you might as well be eating a candy bar.  In fact, why not a Snickers Marathon Bar!  I wish I was making this up.

Stick with your vegetables and fruit and don't let companies, however hippie and granola they present themselves to be, do the work of providing nutrition and energy for your body.  They don't really want you to be healthy and energized.  They just want your money.