PureFit Bars

PureFit offered to send me a sample pack of their vegan nutrition bars to review, so of course I said yes! I work out five days a week, and since I hit up the gym after work, I always stash bars in my purse to snack on so I'm not starving during my workout.

Lately, I've been attending cardio kickboxing and a regular boxing class (punching bags!) every Monday and Tuesday, and both are super hardcore workouts. The harder I work out, the more filling of a bar I need. Food is fuel for real. These bars were perfect for those extra-intense classes since each ranges between 210 and 220 calories. Plus, they won't melt in your bag! That's guaranteed on the wrapper.

These vegan, gluten-free, low-glycemic, kosher bars have a soy protein isolate base mixed with either soy nuts, soy crisps, xgfx oats, nuts, or berries. And they're all naturally sweetened with fruit juice, agave, or brown rice syrup. All the soy might be bad if you're (very unfortunately) allergic, but I don't have a problem with soy.

My fave was the Peanut Butter Crunch Bar, probably because I'm slightly obsessed with peanut butter. The texture of all the bars is a little weird, kinda chalky. All the ingredients are blended, and I'm more of a crunchy gal. But the interesting texture worked best with the PB flavor.

The Chocolate Brownie Bar would be my second fave. It was the only bar with a chocolate rather a nutty flavor. Though I typically choose nuts over chocolate, this bar tasted better than most brownie-flavored energy bars on the market.

I really enjoyed the dried raspberry bits in the Berry Almond Crunch Bar. I'm not really that into fruit, but the sweet berries really complemented the almond flavor.

I actually tried the Granola Crunch Bar first because I figured it'd have bits of granola mixed in. But it didn't. Everything was all blended, just like with the other bars. But it did have a granola-y taste, thanks to the blended oats, almonds, and soy crisps. I would have preferred a crunch, but the taste was still yummy.

My least fave was the Almond Crunch Bar. It tasted too heavily of almond extract, and the tiny almond bits were hard to chew. I wouldn't buy this flavor again, but I'll certainly throw a few PB Crunch, Chocolate Brownie, and Berry Almond Crunch flavors in my cart at Whole Foods next week.

For another take on PureFit bars, check out this review on Vegan Vagrant. Kyle from Vegan Vagrant and I (along with John McDevitt from The Laziest Vegans and MeShell Goodz from Prairie Vegan) are speaking on a panel on Product Reviews & Ethics at Vida Vegan Con!