Are Barebells Protein bars healthy? We take a close look
If you're looking to build muscle, then it doesn't matter how many reps and sets you do in the gym, you need to increase your protein intake. At one point in time that simply meant chowing down on more protein rich foods such as eggs, tuna, and meat. But nowadays, it's easier than ever to get more protein into your diet with products such as protein bars.
One popular brand of protein bar which has recently really started to grow in popularity is the Barebells brand. We've seen these protein bars pop up in many health shops and even in some supermarkets such as Tesco.
But are these Barebells protein bars healthy? We wanted to take a close look at the Barebells protein bars to see how healthy they are, let's get into it:
What type of Barebells protein bars did we look at?
Unlike the Grenade protein bars that we looked at previously, the Barbells range is actually quite small, which makes our review a little easier to conduct. We looked at a few of the most Barebells flavours, including the white chocolate almond and the cookies & cream varieties.
What are the Barebells protein bars made of?
All of the protein bars from the Barebells range are made using milk proteins and collagen. The collagen used in the Barebells original and soft bars is bovine collagen, which comes from beef. This means that none of the main range of protein bars are suitable for vegetarians. There is a vegan protein bar range from Barebells which we focus on later in this guide.
What are the nutritional statistics of the Barebells protein bars?
The real test of how healthy these protein bars are will be the nutritional breakdown, and we have to admit that Barebells definitely impress in that regard. Both the Cookies & Cream and White Chocolate Almond protein bars contain 20g of protein per 55g bar, which is almost exactly the same as what you'll find in a Grenade protein bar (20g of protein per 60g bar). We were really impressed by the fact that Grenade bars contain just 1.6g of sugar per 60g bar, but the Barebells protein bars are even better - the Cookies & Cream bar contains just 1.4g of sugar, and the White Chocolate Almond is even more impressive at 1.3g of sugar per bar.
We were also impressed that the Grenade bars contain just 227 calories each, but again the Barebells protein bars are even better in terms of calories - the Cookies & Cream bar contains 190 calories and the White Chocolate Almond contains 204 calories.
But the statistic which really surprised us was how low in fat these Barebells protein bars are, especially the Cookies & Cream flavour which contains just 6.4g of fat per bar. This is not only lower than the Grenade bars by almost 4g, but it's also lower than the FULFIL protein bars which contain 7.4g of fat.
So, can we describe Barebells bars as healthy?
Overall, we'd have to say that the Barebells protein bars definitely are, especially compared to other popular protein bars such as Grenade bars. The protein bars contain a good amount of protein at 20g per bar, but they also manage to be low in sugar, fat, and calories.
Hopefully, this guide has helped you to decide how healthy Barebells bars are. Let us know what you think of our guide and what you think of these protein bars!
Finn H
Finn is the editor of You Well and has been writing about travel, health, and more for over 10 years.