On long rides, I’m always looking for a greater variety of energy bars. Natural rawfood energy bars seemed to offer something quite different to the usual high sugar content of many bars I use so I bought a box to try.
I find when training hard, you don’t always feel like eating as much as you need to, especially when hot. Having a great variety of energy bars can make it more appetizing. Over winter, I have been munching my way through them.
Ingredients: Dates, Cashews, Almonds, Coconut, Raw cacao Mass / powder (also mango, fig and brazil flavours)
Advantages
- Untreated, uncooked food tends to retain more of the natural goodness within the food. Certainly high energy per weight of food.
- Range of fruit and nuts gives a medium GI index. This means sugars are released over a longer period of time and avoids rushes of energy. This makes them suitable for long rides where you need a constant source of energy.
- They taste ‘healthy’. It tastes more like real food than the processed sweet energy bars. Makes a nice change from the cheap Kelloggs Nutri Grain I often buy and eat. You’re often having sweet drinks so this natural food definitely gives a nice contrast for a change.
- No added sugar. No milk, no soya. No gluten. Might make it easier on the stomach.
- Mix of Carbs, protein and fat.
- Comes in convenient plastic box. Sounds silly but I use a lot for carrying specific food for races around.
Disadvantages
- The design of the wrapper is not good. They claim it is easy to open, but that was not my experience, especially with winter gloves. It’s a minor thing they could easily change, its a bit of a hassle having to stop and open a bar in winter.
- Raw food is good, but you wouldn’t want to just be eating these on rides. I tend to take one or two at most.
- With high nut content, there is also high fat content.
A box of 24 is good value at £24. Cheaper than stopping off and buying a similar product from a health food store. I will be buying another box when it runs out. It feels a good addition to better cycling nutrition.
Overall
Good product, useful for long sportive rides and days when you’ll be eating a lot on the bike.
Products
- Box of 24 Bikefood Rawfood at Wiggle – £24
Per 100 grams
- Energy 386Kcal
- Protein 9g
- Carb 55g
- of which sugars 36g
- Fat 19g
- Fibre 8g
166Kcal per small 43 gram bar.
Related
Thanks for the recommendation. I trust your judgement. I am looking forward to packing a few of these on my first century ride this week.
If you want to try some other raw bars then Nak’d are worth a look, the 68g bars are about £1 each if you buy direct:
http://www.naturalbalancefoods.co.uk/
There are several raw food or live food energy bars on the market and they do offer something different to the usual high sugar content that many nutrition bars have. We like that these bars are real food and processed the least amount possible to maintain their nutritional value. Raw Food Bars bars supply real energy from real fruits, nuts and seeds. http://www.enutritionbars sells a number of Raw Food bars in the USA.
Read more: http://cyclinginfo.co.uk/blog/nutrition/rawfood-energy-bars/#ixzz1LPNZtLB1
Thanks for the tip! I usually take fig rolls or Frusli bars. And bananas of course.