Product Review: Vegetarian Barbarian Mini Loaves
My coach Cathy Savage Fitness recommended these - they are made locally by a fitness competitor and her husband - so after visiting the Vegetarian Barbarian website (http://thevb.myshopify.com/) and reviewing the nutritional facts I decided to give the mini loaves a try. The ingredients are truly all natural - no preservatives. For example, the chocolate peanut butter bar contains tofu, ground almonds, chocolate whey protein, avocado, peanut butter, apple sauce, hemp protein, water, peanuts, hempseed, coconut palm sugar, walnut oil, cocoa, agave, flaxseed, chocolate extra, peanut butter extract, cinnamon, salt, 85% chocolate bar. I thought wow! sounds terrific! I ordered the variety 12-pack for $27 plus shipping. The loaves came in a couple days - pretty quick, by USPS. I brought two different flavors home to try them out with my mom. We ate the first one, pumpkin pie, after dinner as an evening snack. Both of us were a bit disappointed with the size - these things are tiny!! You won’t find any photos of the bars on the company’s website and my guess is that’s why there aren’t any photos - would have been an immediate tip off! Anyway, the pumpkin pie mini loaves don’t taste anything like pumpkin. There are lots of different seeds and things in them including cranberries - not something I have ever had in any pumpkin pie I have ever eaten. The bar didn’t taste bad but it sure didn’t taste like pumpkin pie and both of us were hungry and unsatisfied afterwards. I ate an apple and enjoyed it a lot more than I did the pumpkin pie mini loaf. Today mom and I ate our second VB mini-loaf chocolate peanut butter with tea after lunch. Mom said not to bring any more of those “things” home. I agree. We both came to the same conclusion: not worth it! The chocolate peanut butter mini-loaf was disappointing because it really didn’t taste anything like chocolate peanut butter - yes there were some small chocolate pieces and raw peanuts in there but this was no more chocolate peanut butter than the pumpkin pie mini loaf was like pumpkin pie in flavor. Neither was satisfying and the mini loaves are high in calories (ca 200) and fat - admittedly so-called healthy fat (ca 14 g) but fat nonetheless and relatively low, from my perspective, in grams of protein (ca 14 g). Each tiny loaf (ca. 1″ x 1″ x 3″) is packaged in heat shrink plastic that was very difficult to remove without injuring the loaves. The nutritional information is written in tiny letters and is virtually impossible to read on the packaging. If you want the nutritional facts you are best off going to their website and reading it there. Finally these things are tiny! LOL! Did I say that before? I really wish I could recommend these but I can’t. If I were in contest prep I would probably end up binging from hunger after eating one of these things. Flavor-wise very disappointing as they don’t taste anything like what you were hoping for.
Nutritional info 1 loaf (63 g) 200 calories 14 g protein 13 g fat 9 g carbs 4 g fiber
