Gripe of the day: Vegan Protein Bars

They're gross, right? Literally just eat beans instead

Ok, let’s start with definitions.

When I mean a vegan protein bar, I mean a serious protein bar. Something that has pretty high protein. Something around 10g of protein for every 100 calories. Any less than that is just a bar with protein.

Now we all know that the bars with less protein bars can be alright if you like that sort of thing. Just kinda oaty, maybe sweet, maybe chocolatey. It’s fine, it’s good, people like them.

But for people who want to ingest a lot of protein, they want much more in there. And a lot of high protein vegan bars are out there. But we know as you keep creeping up the protein scale, it keeps getting grainier and grosser. Various companies have tried to do things around this like puffed soy or overly fake-sweet coatings. But texture has been a huge problem in this category.

Now, Itsi, you may be asking. Great proprietor of the VILF empire. Why gripe about this? Are you not rattling the cage of the laws of physics that determine that protein inclusion generates such results in gustation?

No, fool.

We have alternatives.

My gripe, is that these aren’t better than just eating edamame, the base case for vegan protein. They have higher protein content and are far more delicious. All we’ve done here is extracted the soy protein and squeezed it into bar that is slightly sweet. It’s not even more convenient. It’s really easy to get roasted edamame snacks that are way cheaper than protein bars.

I have no inherent problem with these crazy things we do to nature, but why do it in to create a form that is far more gross than its original state? If you’re going to make a protein bar, it either needs to be better, or have higher protein. But products out there are neither.

We need to stop putting out bad products, it is not good for the movement.