CLIF Kid Organic Zbars: Product Review

Well hello and happy Monday morning! How was your weekend? Ours was lovely and a nice balance of family time, errands and fun. I would have preferred, of course, if it hadn't been so hot! Summer is close to being over, so already the start of school is looming, which means packing lunches and snacks. If you are a parent, then you are probably always on the lookout for healthy snacks for your kids. If so, you may want to check out these Zbars from CLIF.

We've known about these bars for years since we found them in the U.S., but they're new to Canada. The girls have always loved them, so when they offered to send some samples, I jumped at the opportunity.

We got one of each flavour being offered here: Chocolate Chip, Iced Oatmeal Cookie, and Chocolate Brownie, which was perfect, because the girls hadn't tried these varieties.

Big A's favorite was the Chocolate Brownie, while Little A favoured the Iced Oatmeal Cookie. Both felt it was hard to detect the chocolate chips in the Chocolate Chip bar, and said it was a bit bland. Little A thought the Iced Oatmeal Cookie tasted the most like the grown-up kind of CLIF bar.

The bars are 140 calories, with a few grams each of fat, fibre and protein. I like that they only use whole grains and are organic, but, of course don't love the 12g of sugar that comes from several added sweeteners. I've noticed that companies are scared to make products for kids with sugar alternatives, even the natural ones like xylitol or stevia, because a lot of parents thing 'natural sugar' is the best option. Its not, by the way. Anyhow, even coconut sugar would be preferable in my mind.

Compared to Quaker Chewy Chocolate Chip granola bars, the Zbar is a bit bigger (36g versus 24g), but also is higher in calories (140 versus 100) and sugar (12g versus 7g). The Quaker bars, however, have less fibre, are not organic and contain corn syrup. So overall, I would chose these over a standard granola bar.

The girls used to have to wait until we travelled to the U.S. to get these, so they are pretty happy they are now in Canada!

Disclosure: We were sent the bars for free, but all opinions on this blog are our own.

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