Raw Crunch Bar Review!

I've seen quite a bit about the Raw diet lately and thought it'd be nice to try some raw products for myself and see what this craze is all about. The wonderful Kathy Feldman was generous enough to send me the following package to sample and review:

I sat down and read Kathy's book The Raw Crunch Diet right away to see what her particular stance was on a raw diet. Her book was a nice, quick, and fairly easy read with good information backed up by her twelve years of experience in the fields of corrective and high performance exercise health and nutrition. She really does know her stuff! You can learn more about her, this diet, and her products all at http://www.kathyfeldman.com/index.html I encourage you to check it out! I truly enjoyed her book and could see how much she cared about this diet. There were also many positive remarks on her website and in the book commenting on other peoples' good experiences with the diet. I think I might have to try it too! It's not too extreme and it allows for a balanced diet in addition to treats here and there. I'll have to wait until the summer or later though when my life isn't quite so hectic and I'm no longer reliant on dorm food each and every day :-). The exercise video also looks great! Unfortunately, my mom has my stability ball and I haven't been able to try it out yet. When I do I'll let you know how it is from personal experience :-).

And now for reviews on the bars themselves! I was a little hesitant, but not too much since the ingredient lists for the bars looked great. The first bar I tried was Chocolate. I give it an 8.5 out of 10. The hardest part was opening the wrapper - these bars are sealed tightly! They're VERY fresh though with a nice aroma and a great crunch. I loved the pieces of chocolate and the hint of raw honey - the perfect amount of sweetness. I also loved all the nuts and seeds. My only complaint would be the overwhelming abundance of sesame seeds. I guess I'm not a huge fan of their flavor, and it was a tad bit overpowering in these bars. Still, overall I really enjoyed them, and they were all quite filling for only 150 calories. And full of healthy fats too! Here are some pics from the box itself first:

The above picture shows the flavors and some info. on the bars (you can click on the picture to blow it up!). The picture below shows a little letter from Kathy and Ross.

And here are the nutrition facts, which are basically the same for each bar since the base is the same for all the bars. All bars are 150 calories, and the ingredients are basically the same too except for the advertised flavor (ie. the cranberry bar has cranberries instead of chocolate).




I give the Blueberries bar an 8 out of 10 too. Blueberries are one of my favorite fruits, and this bar had a nice smattering of little bits of blueberry that had a relatively strong flavor.



I give the Goji Berries bar an 8 out of 10. This was my first time trying goji berries and they were great - kind of like a sweet wine flavor and quite strong!

I give the Cranberry flavor a 7.5 out of 10. This one gets a little lower score because I would've liked just a bit stronger cranberry flavor.

Overall, I liked the chocolate best. Chocolate really seemed to go with the nuts and seeds well, and I actually started to have a mini dark chocolate bar to eat with the other flavored raw crunch bars. Nuts just seem to need chocolate to accompany them ;-).

Anyway, after this experience, I'll definitely be on the lookout for more raw products and recipes since I think they can be quite delicious and healthy.

And a question for you all: Are you watching the Olympics?

Personally, I'm not since I'm pretty overwhelmed with school work. I do see some of the highlights on my MSN homepage though :-).

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