Product Review: KIND Bars

I'm a mad snacker. I'm grazing constantly. At my former place of work *queue melancholy violins* I had a fully functioning brunch buffet operating under the counter.

So I take my snacking very seriously. Here is a list of gluten-free vegan granola bars that I can't get enough of. My dream is that one day I get famous enough that they start sending me this stuff for free, because I can't lie, these granola bars are so expensive... them's crack prices.

KIND BARS:

This brand is fantastic. It's basically Just Nuts and Fruit with Glucose Puffs, Whatever the Hell Those Are. They run between $1.33 at Whole Foods on sale and $2.29 at the co-op I shop at in Boston where they seem to think that our relative distance from civilization justifies the exorbitant price raise. Maybe I'm judging without knowing all the facts. Maybe one out of every two KIND bar trucks gets taken down by pirates crossing Huntington Avenue.

The Good:

Almond Walnut Macadamia + Protein

Holy crap, that's a big granola bar. Okay. Just shrunk it. I like this one the best because there's a tantalizing saltiness that I just can't get enough of... Also there's protein, so if you're stranded without your gluten-free and vegan food, this one will get you where you need to be.

Almond and Coconut

This is much sweeter than most of the KIND bars, and is harder to chew for those of you with hinge difficulties. I also sometimes find that coconut is a bit harder to digest, so for me this bar falls under the category of "Sometimes Food."

Mixed Nuts

This one's really simple. It's nice if you, like me, adhere to the belief that eating coconut before noon makes you an alcoholic.

The Bad:

This is the Almond Cashew bar with Omega 3. Offensively sweet. It tastes like a runny fruit leather snack with bursts of nuts... and I can't decide if the nuts are restful islands in a sea of bad ideas or if they're road blocks on the Journey to Completion. Because for $2.29, it doesn't matter how disgusting the thing is. You have to finish it. There are starving hipsters in the Haight Ashbury area who would kill to have a vegan granola bar.

The Weird: Advisable / Unadvisable

This is a bar made entirely of Sesame & Peanuts (With Chocolate). Once you get past the fact that, come to think of it, you've never actually eaten straight sesames in this volume before and wow, now that you mention it, it's mildly unsettling for a reason you can't quite place... it's actually really good!