Atlas Protein Bars

Another day, another protein bar review?  Yep.  Bars are something I keep stocked in my pantry, and in my bag, pretty much all the time.   I'm frequently on the go, so I utilize them when I need a mid-afternoon snack, and for some styles of bars, I also enjoy them with my breakfast (I like to dunk them in yogurt and top with fruit and cocoa nibs ...).  I'm always trying new brands of bars of all styles, which led me to Atlas Bars.

"There's nothing special about Atlas Bars. They're made with ingredients so simple you could make them at home."

The marketing for the brand is about how simple they are: real, clean ingredients, no seed oils, no artificial sweeteners, no additives.  The bars boast 15-20g of protein each, mostly due to a combo of whey and milk protein isolates (and to a lesser extend, nuts).  I'm not really sure I consider whey protein isolate an ingredient I'd have at home, but I understand their point.  All are gluten-free, but not vegan.  They come in only 4 flavors: almond or peanut butter chocolate chip, dark chocolate almond, and salted peanut butter.  One size, one format, no other adjacent styles of product.

As my body doesn't generally tolerate whey protein isolates, I had to start small to make sure I wouldn't have a reaction to the bar - but also, the moment I opened it and it had that classic old school protein bar look (you know what I mean, the ones that look like they'll be dry and chalky and taste awful), I assumed this would not be a problem.  I only tried one flavor, but it was far better than I anticipated.

Almond Chocolate Chip.

This looked like a protein bar.  No masking it, no adding a chocolate coating, no adding oats/nuts/seeds to make it interesting ... nope, it was a smooth, dense, chalky protein bar.  I assumed I'd take a nibble, and ditch it.

But ... it really wasn't bad.  Now, it wasn't good exactly, but it reminded me of a cookie dough flavor, a real surprise given that they didn't market it that way at all, and rather, called this "almond chocolate chip".  It did have chocolate chips, large size actually, melty, decent quality, and reasonably well distributed.  The almond I didn't notice nor taste at all.  I expected chunks of almond, but there were none, it was all almond butter mixed with the isolates.  Although sweetened with monk fruit, it didn't have a strange aftertaste or sweetness to it.

So, yeah, it was a dense, soft, old school protein bar texture, but, it reminded me of cookie dough, didn't have strange aftertaste, and had nice chocolate gems.  3/5.