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- Aug 9, 2007
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Greenbelly Bars
My Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars
Price: Variable ($4-5), See Kickstarter Campaign or visit their online store.
There are plenty of meal replacement bars out there, and to be honest, I wouldn't be interested in trying or reviewing the vast majority of them. The unique concept behind Greenbelly bars is that they are full meal replacements but they taste really good and are filled with good, natural ingredients. Instead of being packed full of funky, hard to pronounce stuff, they're just made with normal food without all the preservatives. And to make it a true meal replacement, each bar is 33% or 1/3rd of the FDA recommendations for what your body needs. Check it out:
At just over 5oz a piece, if someone wanted to run only off these bars and avoid having to cook and, carry a stove, pot, etc. It's actually a pretty reasonable plan and your food weight would be right around one pound per day. Personally, I wouldn't do that. A hot dinner is nice and mixing things up is pretty important when you're on the trail for a long time. But I could totally see this replacing my breakfast and maybe even some of my lunch routine.
I'd tried meal replacement bars in the past that were just horrendous so I was actually really surprised to get these and find out they were not just tolerable to eat but they were actually insanely good! Each bar is split into two inside the package so it makes it easy to have half now and half as you hike or whatever you prefer. My favorites were the two fruit flavors; Cranberry Almond and Peanut Apricot. The Dark Chocolate Banana was good too, but I'm not a big chocolate guy. If I were putting down many of these on a long trip, I'd welcome the variety though.
What do we love?
The flavor and eatability is top notch. It tasted absolutely nothing like any meal replacement bar I've ever tried and it didn't require a gallon of water to wash down. And with the big chunks of real fruit and nuts, it didn't have that processed brick feel of most regular snack bars you might hike with.
The weight and complete nutrition in one bar is also very appealing. We like that they split each bar in two to make spreading the meal out easier.
No preservatives!
Price is a little on the high side for the 3-packs but much more reasonable if you buy the larger packages, largely due to shipping costs getting spread out. I feel these are well worth the cost in the $4-$5 range. If you're thinking about pulling the trigger on the Kickstarter, save some money and go for a 12-pack. You won't regret it.
As Greenbelly grows and gets bigger, it would be cool to see them offer a vegan option (without honey), as well as getting their oats from a certified gluten-free source so that they can have that selling point.
I really liked these bars. I wasn't originally going to do a full review, since I just had a 3-pack to go on, but after trying them out, I decided it was well worth it. I'd recommend them to anyone.
Here is the Greenbelly Kickstarter video. Head on over to their Kickstarter page here, or go direct to their website when the campaign is done.
[parsehtml]<iframe width="800" height="600" src="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1169741882/greenbelly-complete-meal-on-the-go/widget/video.html" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"> </iframe>[/parsehtml]
My Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars
Price: Variable ($4-5), See Kickstarter Campaign or visit their online store.
At just over 5oz a piece, if someone wanted to run only off these bars and avoid having to cook and, carry a stove, pot, etc. It's actually a pretty reasonable plan and your food weight would be right around one pound per day. Personally, I wouldn't do that. A hot dinner is nice and mixing things up is pretty important when you're on the trail for a long time. But I could totally see this replacing my breakfast and maybe even some of my lunch routine.
I'd tried meal replacement bars in the past that were just horrendous so I was actually really surprised to get these and find out they were not just tolerable to eat but they were actually insanely good! Each bar is split into two inside the package so it makes it easy to have half now and half as you hike or whatever you prefer. My favorites were the two fruit flavors; Cranberry Almond and Peanut Apricot. The Dark Chocolate Banana was good too, but I'm not a big chocolate guy. If I were putting down many of these on a long trip, I'd welcome the variety though.
What do we love?
The flavor and eatability is top notch. It tasted absolutely nothing like any meal replacement bar I've ever tried and it didn't require a gallon of water to wash down. And with the big chunks of real fruit and nuts, it didn't have that processed brick feel of most regular snack bars you might hike with.
The weight and complete nutrition in one bar is also very appealing. We like that they split each bar in two to make spreading the meal out easier.
No preservatives!
What would we change?
Price is a little on the high side for the 3-packs but much more reasonable if you buy the larger packages, largely due to shipping costs getting spread out. I feel these are well worth the cost in the $4-$5 range. If you're thinking about pulling the trigger on the Kickstarter, save some money and go for a 12-pack. You won't regret it.
As Greenbelly grows and gets bigger, it would be cool to see them offer a vegan option (without honey), as well as getting their oats from a certified gluten-free source so that they can have that selling point.
Conclusion
I really liked these bars. I wasn't originally going to do a full review, since I just had a 3-pack to go on, but after trying them out, I decided it was well worth it. I'd recommend them to anyone.
Here is the Greenbelly Kickstarter video. Head on over to their Kickstarter page here, or go direct to their website when the campaign is done.
[parsehtml]<iframe width="800" height="600" src="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1169741882/greenbelly-complete-meal-on-the-go/widget/video.html" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"> </iframe>[/parsehtml]
