I review three flavors of the famous Quest Bar. It’s not hard to find Quest bar reviews on the web today but I’m hoping my experience brings up a few points that you haven’t read somewhere else.
First of all- it was with incredibly high hopes that I tried the famous Quest bar. Seriously- how many times have you seen people RAVE about these things on Twitter. I’ve even see people posting recipes of quest bar desserts! They are everywhere! And everyone loves them! They must be incredible right!? I know this review is long past due- but here we go.
Flavor: Chocolate Peanut Butter
If your a regular reader of mine you know I have a serious, serious weakness when it comes to chocolate peanut butter. So as I perused the millions of quest bar flavors- this one was an automatic. I will try, and most likely fall in love with anything that is chocolate peanut butter flavored. That being said- I honestly wasn’t blown away by Quest’s take on the classic-est of classic flavors. There was sweetness, but just not enough chocolate bitterness and not enough nutty saltiness to make this bar a winner. When I’m having chocolate peanut butter anything, I need to be able to close my eyes, and INSTANTLY taste both chocolate and PB. Unfortunately this wasn’t the case with the Quest bar. In a blind taste test a honestly don’t even know if I would’ve correctly guessed what flavor this was supposed to be. O well.
Flavor: Cinnamon Roll
This flavor was something that immediately stuck out to me on the shelf. When you think of protein bar flavors- your almost always talking about chocolate, vanilla, ‘cookies and cream’, and then maybe some kind of cinnamon-raisin or something (I will always love you cinnamon-raisin Powerbar!). However, with Quest, they have absolutely gone above and beyond to differentiate themselves with some really unique flavors. Cinnamon roll, PB&J (see below), lemon cream pie– they have some seriously killer flavors. Being an avid Cinnabon fan, (and thus about five pounds heavier than I would like to be), I knew I had to fire up the Cinnamon Roll Quest Bar. Now. I wasn’t crazy about the chocolate PB- but with the Cinnamon Roll flavor, I think I actually “get it” now. I understand the hype, and why fitties pee their pants and snapchat all their friends when Quest sends them a sample box for free. This stuff was out-of-this-world good. They absolutely nailed this flavor- all the way down to adding in a sort of creaminess that you get from the icing on top. It had the identical sort of oven-baked molasses after-taste that you get from an authentic Washington-Dulles Cinnabon. I can’t praise Quest highly enough for their work on this flave. Top marks for the Cinnamon Roll!
Flavor: Peanut-Butter and Jelly
So I loved Cinnamon Roll, didn’t really like Chocolate Peanut Butter at all- but I did find a ‘B’ if you will in the PB&J flavor. I give this a ‘B’ because it didn’t blow me away, but it didn’t let me down. I’m not sure that this flavor could have ever let me down seeing as I’ve never had a PB&J protein bar, but, anyways, this flavor was alright. I liked how they did manage to get some real jelly flaovr in here. You can totally pick up some essence of Smuckers classic strawberry jam in this Quest protein bar- although not as much JIF as I would prefer. As with the Chocolate PB, they just couldn’t pull off the PB flavor. I think some of that may be because they use cashew as an ingredient in all their bars- so maybe my taste buds just can’t get past having both ‘nut’ flavors in their at once. Regardless- I found this flavor fairly enjoyable. If I were to nit-pick this flavor, I think I was able to pick up a little too much of that artificial sweetener aftertaste in this one, which I was not completely fond of.
Performance:
Ok so it is almost impossible to ‘feel’ a protein bar ‘working’, and let’s be serious- you will never ‘see’ results simply from switching up your protein bar. That being said, you can absolutely grade a protein bar on its macros, and also on how it makes you feel following ingestion- so without much further ado, lets break down Quest bars on both of those grounds. Macros: While my favorite aspect (along with everyone else in the world) of the Quest bar is the taste- I am REALLY a fan of these macros. Let’s face it- 95% of all the protein bars on the market are candy bars with some whey or soy isolate mixed in. Seriously- check out the sugar content of alot of these bars- especially the more mainstream (cough ZONE cough). But the Quest bars really do shine when it comes to macros. As someone who tries to minimize carbs during almost every part of the day except in the few hours preceding and following a workout, I actually have found Quest to come in super handy when I get huger pangs. At over 20 grams of protein, these bars pack way more grams of protein per serving than almost anything out there- especially the mainstream ones. Of particular interest is the carb count. These bars on first glance pack a pretty stiff amount of carbs (>15 grams depending on the flavor), but on second glance you can see a great deal of this is non-digestible fiber. The combination of a ton of protein and a ton of fiber leads to one incredibly noticeable effect (well, two, but…right?) it fills you up! Yes, if you are ever in one of those moods where you want to and will given the opportunity, eat EVERYTHING in site- then Quest bars may very well be your savior. Seriously give them a shot. How the make you feel:I’ve gone through the macros and what I like and don’t like about them- but how do these bars make you feel? Well, as I just went over- they make you feel pretty darn full. The only truly negative I have to bring forth in regards to Quest bars- is that in their ‘Quest’ 😛 to make these bars fill you up so much that you never want to eat ever again- they may have overdone it. What I mean is that with all the flavors I tried (but to varying degrees), I definitely experienced some marked stomach discomfort. Part of me thinks that it is because of the significant amount of sugar alcohols used, but then again it may just be the borderline-ridiculous amounts of fiber in there. Whichever it is- that is the only negative thing I can really say about them. It wasn’t crazy, stabbing, ferocious pain- but just the right amount of queasiness to make you uncomfortable enough to take notice.
In summary, I can now join the masses and consider myself a Quest bar fan. If you haven’t already- I would totally recommend jumping on the bandwagon. I’ll save you a seat 🙂
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