I have no idea why I bought these. I never, ever met a granola bar that I liked. I don’t know what I was thinking.

I might hate granola bars because I never met a granola I liked, either. But lately, I have found one exception, which is a Trader Joe’s Maple Pecan Granola with Flakes. They have the same cereal in several other flavors, but when I tried another – hated it. So there is really only one single granola on earth that I can eat.

That wouldn’t seem to bode well for these: they are not Trader Joe’s maple pecan granola bars. So when I put them in my basket, either I had lost my mind at the moment or… gained psychic powers?
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I’m usually not a big fan of anything with fruits and nuts in it, but I thought I’d give these Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain Fruit & Nut bars a try since I don’t seem to be that healthy of an eater.

These come in two different flavors - Berry & Almond and Cranberry, Raisin & Peanut.

At first, I thought this bar would be hard and probably crack one of my teeth when I bit into it. But that was not the case because it is a soft, flexible bar. I say flexible because I always have fun bending the bars back and forth while they are still in their package.

I first tried the Berry & Almond bar because it looked slightly more appealing to me than the other. (Remember, I dislike fruit and nuts.) When I opened it, the bar was so soft it started bending on its own and almost fell apart. The bar is actually fun to look at: it’s covered in what look like cranberries, oats, crispy rice, bran cereal and almonds.
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If you’re like me, consuming an energy bar is like eating a bar of lies. I don’t mean that they conceal their ingredients or exaggerate their benefits (although I’ve yet to find a bar that makes me float above the street, a la Marty McFly). What I mean is that I will never, under any circumstance, use an energy bar to:

A) run a marathon
B) power-hike along the Appalachian Trail, or
C) lift something 20 times my body weight, in homage to the noble ant

My lifestyle does not involve a Jeep. Nor does it include Timberland hiking boots, a Nalgene bottle, or a dog with a bandanna tied around its neck. Rather than utilize energy bars for their intended purposes, I use them to silence my grumbling stomach as I drive to work, or elevate my blood sugar levels during lectures I would otherwise sleep through. Truth be told, most of the time I don’t even buy these products, since their marketing seems specifically designed to shame my slovenly ways.

Take Clif Bars, for example. Their wrappers feature a man scaling a mountain. Legs flailing, he clings to a granite outcropping with all this might, his battered fingernails digging into the stubborn rock before him (the man has just enough energy to hold on, thanks to that 3 oz. of granola he ingested before climbing). Ah, the average Clif bar consumer! Always spending his free time dangling above certain death!

So, if you couldn’t already tell, I’m glad that Clif has come out with a less intense snack. Because frankly, some of us just can’t handle the X-tremeness of the standard Clif Bar product.
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I’ve always been ambivalent about bite-size calorie bags. On the one hand, I like them for telling me it’s healthy to eat small portions of nutritionally bankrupt foods. Even if I’m downing a pouch of carb nuggets, I can justify my transgression by glancing at the number on the bag. Why, it’s only 90 calories! This is so healthy, I’m practically working out!

On the other hand, however, their portions sizes are frequently way too small. Believing you’ll be satisfied after one microscopic pouch is the culinary equivalent of chasing windmills – it’s hopelessly idealistic, so you might as well season that donkey you’re riding and settle down for dinner.

Such was the dilemma I faced while tearing into a bag of Quaker’s chocolate-flavored Granola Bites. Could a low calorie snack be high in satisfaction? I doubted it, but as a fan of their regular granola bars, I figured Quaker’s mini-bites were a relatively safe bet. What could go wrong with chocolate and granola?

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