Eat Natural Bars

Update Review, November 2016

I originally discovered Eat Natural bars in London, when they were a vendor at a food fair I attended.  I loved the sample flavors I tried there, but not the bars I took home.

Fast forward a few years, and I saw the Eat Natural bars again, but this time, in France.  I was eager to try more flavors.

Una barre aux fruits secs noix du bresil & raisins secs amandes, cacahuétes et noisettes.

This was a nuts and raisins bar, with puffed rice and a sweet sugar and honey binding, no oats.  The assortment of nuts was great: almonds, peanuts, hazelnuts, and Brasil nuts.

It was very good, for what it was.  Lots of crunchy nuts, and the brasil nuts were my favorites.  Overall sweet in a nice way, although I didn't really care for the raisins, and there were lots of them to help stick the thing together.  I also didn't care for the rice puffs, but, at least they were more interesting than standard oats.

Overall, good, if you are into oatless, nutty bars.

Original Review, November 2014

As you've been reading the past few weeks on Travelin' Tuesdays: London, I was recently in the UK for a few days.  While I was there, my office was holding a product fair, and I got to meet many local artisans.  Such fortunate timing on my part, as you know how much I love to try new things, including snack bars.

Eat Natural was one of the featured vendors, handing out samples of their bars.  I don't recall which varieties I tried that day, but I did really like them.  The guy running the booth also gave me two mini bars to take home and try.  In addition to 13 varieties of bars, they also make cereal, all featuring natural, wholesome ingredients, loaded up with assorted nuts and fruits, usually with interesting coatings.

Unfortunately, I didn't really like the flavors he gave me to take home, but I know I liked the ones I tried in person, so, if you ever encounter these, perhaps give them a go!

Dark Chocolate with Cranberries and Macadamias

"A grown-up indulgent bar for those who love a sneaky bit of dark chocolate now and then. You’ll also discover a feast of coconut, brazils, macadamias and cranberries."

The base is shredded coconut and crisped rice, sweetened with glucose syrup and honey, loaded up with dried cranberries and brazil and macadamia nuts.  The bottom half is coated in dark chocolate.

I have this weird thing with both brazil nuts and macadamia nuts.  Sometimes I love them.  Other times I really can't stand them.  For some reason, today was one of those can't stand them days.  They tasted stale and rotten to me, but I'm pretty sure they weren't.  And I never like dried cranberries.  So, this was a flop for me, but I'm blaming myself for hating this, not the product itself.

Almond & Apricot with a Yoghurt Coating.

"A simple mix of juicy unsulphured apricots, crunchy almonds and coconuts, completely smothered in a smooth yoghurt coating".

This is their top seller.  I liked it more than the previous one, but still didn't like it very much.

The same base of crisped rice and shredded coconut, sweetened with glucose syrup and honey, but this time loaded with bits of dried apricot and almonds.  I liked the apricots more than the cranberries in the previous one, and appreciated the bit of chew they added, but they were otherwise uninteresting.  The almonds were whole, super crunchy, again, I preferred them to the macadamias in the previous bar, but, uninteresting.  The yoghurt coating wasn't overly sweet.  But, the thing I didn't care for was the shredded coconut.  It seemed to overwhelm the entire bar, and resulted in a grainy, course texture.