(Chunky Peanut Butter)I've loved these things for a long time, at times too much. I think these are the best tasting protein bars on the market, better than the old quest bars. The ''chunky'' peanut butter is the best, the ''creamy'' peanut butter is also good and better than your average protein bar. The ''creamy'' peanut butter bar can more accurately be described as ''chewy,'' and I don't mean that in a bad way, in the way that most (peanut butter) protein bars may be ''chewy'' which ends up being ''tough'' and ''dry'' - the think! creamy peanut butter ends up being a very pleasant nice and soft taste and texture, very much what a ''creamy'' or ''chewy'' peanut butter protein bar SHOULD taste like.
The ''chunky'' peanut butter bar, by far my all time favorite protein bar, could more accurately be described as something like ''soft'' - maybe texture-wise something slightly comparable to a brownie or a bar or something? There's a perfect texture and softness that I absolutely love. Which brings me to the taste, in my opinion they taste very good, for a protein bar, and that's an important caveat. They're not going to taste like a dessert. The sugar alcohol is going to be dependent upon the person tasting them. I can sort of taste an alcohol like ''coolness'' aftertaste that I suspect many will not like, but in my opinion it works and is just sweet enough. The taste compliments the texture well. It's hard to describe but I love it.
I know some people are sensitive to sugar alcohols, while others find them quite tolerable in terms of digestion, my own experience with most things, and most protein supplements is that as long as I don't have many times more than the 1 serving of any one item that they're usually very tolerable, and the same applies to these protein bars. But people should understand that some people aren't going to tolerate them perfectly. These will fulfill a role as a snack during times of dieting where some kind of chocolate is being craved and allow me to reasonably flex them into my diet without throwing macros completely off track, like adding a bunch of saturated fats or taking out ~20g of protein to fit in something chocolately that may be super high calories, high sat. fat and low in protein. That being said, it's not like this is a unicorn of a health food, and so within the context of a diet becomes a valuable tool in the tool box addressing issues like satiety and hunger etc. Once again though, some people will find the sugar alcohol's actually act like sugar and may spike hunger.
A few years ago when I purchased these they always made it to my door in perfect condition. There were some reviews of people getting old bars or melting bars or damaged bars, however my shipment came with a styrofoam cooler/insulator thing with what looked like a bag of ice. The bag of ice was melted and I sort of wonder how much it actually helped as it took a couple days, and I imagine something like dry ice would be better probably? It would last longer and I assume less possibility for moisture? I don't really know, but I thought it was a very nice and thoughtful touch that they are going to that extent to ensure their product arrives in good shape.