The Quest of the Bariatric Foodie (Part One)

It seems Bariatric Foodie has entered a new era, an exciting era! Companies that make products that can benefit us WLS-folk are starting to contact me, asking if I'd like to try their products for review!

Excuse me for being a bit tickled by this. You have to understand where I am coming from on this. I started this blog three years ago with the intent of housing photos of all the food I was cooking (because I was, and remain, a recipe maniac). To see this site, and the community that supports it, flourish like this is akin to watching my child get a doctorate from Harvard. Mama is so proud!

(/end sappy moment)

This opportunity came by way of a Foodie who told the folks at Quest Nutritition about the blog. They checked it out, liked what they saw and very much wanted to let you guys know about their low-sugar/high-protein bars. So they asked me if I'd take a few to sample. I said yes and they sent me some bars to sample but here's the good part...they want to give one of YOU a whole box!!!

So...here's how it's going down. I tried to write the review of the bars in one post. Didn't work. I think the Iliad was shorter than that post. So I'm going to take on two at a time! AFTER I've reviewed them all, I'll let you know what you need to do to win a free box! Sound fair? No? Well...look...

(Do read the reviews, though. They'll give you a "leg up" in the giveaway!)

Anyhoo...let's get started, shall we?

Quest Protein bars! I never really thought much about them. I’m not a big protein bar eater. I think mostly because my mind is very much attached to volume eating and bars are little and fill me up which make my head want to explode. If I am full I want to have eaten a lot (or perceive myself as eating a lot). Therapy. I’m working on it.

Obligatory (and too frickin' long) legal beagle disclaimer: Bariatric Foodie received free products in exchange for providing a review of said products. As per Bariatric Foodie policy, all products submitted for review receive a fair and unbiased review, based on my personal opinion of the product. Potential buyers should always investigate products directly with the product manufacturer before purchasing. Neither Bariatric Foodie, nor its author, were monetarily compensated for this review.

S'anyway...when I decided to review the Quest bars I gave the rep instructions. “Only send me two of each bar you are sending me because I’ll never finish a whole case,” Nik said. Dutifully, they did that. They sent me two of six low-sugar, high protein bars. One for me to try and one for me to photo (because inevitably when folks send me one of something I tear into it and am halfway done before I realize that I didn’t take a picture).
Here are the flavors I got with the basic stats on them. (Scroll down the page for the stats)

Here are the first two bars I tried (click on the title for ordering info):

Vanilla Almond Crunch

This one I grabbed when I knew I wouldn’t have time for lunch and needed something. The bars themselves are interesting looking. They are very…shiny. Waxy? It smelled very good. Like a nice vanilla with just a hint of almond, although I’ve always been of the opinion that “almond smell” doesn’t smell very much like almonds, but I digress. I hoped the waxy look of it didn’t translate into its texture. In my hands it felt sort of like when you put cookie dough in the fridge and it gets really hard (so…y’know…then you have to eat it to save it from a cold, miserable death, right?).

I bit into it and it was…not waxy. Chewy, but not waxy. This is a small bites bar. Big bites might kill you. Sorry Quest but it’s true. Now at the precise moment I took this bite someone asked me a question and I did have a bit of trouble answering them. That was bad. But the bar was good. Nice, vanilla flavoring and smooth nuttiness. I could taste the protein but it wasn’t bothersome to me. It sort of blended. For those not as familiar as I with protein taste, it might not even register. I was encouraged. So a few days later I moved on to…

Chocolate Brownie

Oh. My. MARTHA!!! This one was waxy too but I wasn’t fazed by this point. I bit into it and…seriously regretted not accepting a whole case! Why did I do that??? It tastes…like a brownie. No seriously. I know people say that and then it doesn’t taste like a brownie but this one really does. Chocolatey, chewy. There is a slight bitterness not much unlike dark chocolate that I really dug.

Now the info they gave me with the package said one of their customers suggested nuking the bars for 30 seconds to create the effect of a cookie. So after eating half this bar (and teasing Pam by raving about it) I decided to nuke the rest.

After the "big nuke." Doesn't it LOOK like a real brownie now???? YUMMY!



SERIOUSLY???? The texture after nuking is spot ON. SPOT ON! It felt like a brownie…tasted like a brownie…I was forever changed by that eating experience. And I was up 20g of protein. WINNING!

So that's my impression of the first two bars. Stay tuned tomorrow to hear about the apple pie bar and the PB&J bar. And you KNOW I love me some peanut butter so Quest...get it right!

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