Typically when I go to review a nutritional bar made by a large company, I am disappointed with what I see. There are so many great nutritional bars out there but it seems that the ones that get the most attention are the ones that aren’t good for you. Well-known food companies make the most popular bars and they usually provide the least amount of health benefits. I think it’s because the big food companies are looking solely at the bottom line and try to make the bars as cheap as possible. They place more money into marketing than into their products. On the other hand the little companies that make great bars place more value (money) in the product and less on marketing.

Atkins surprised me when I noticed that their bars were pretty good in both nutritional facts and ingredients. It is common for a nutritional bar to be able to put the right amount of calories, fat, carbs and protein in the bar, but rare that they use good ingredients. The majority of commercial bars are littered with high fructose corn syrup, palm oil, sugar and a wide variety of other additives. Although the Atkins bar has more ingredients than I recommend, the ingredients were at least decent.

The bar itself has 200 calories, for a snack you should stay in between the 100-200 calorie mark if you trying to maintain or lose weight. It also only had 8g of fat, but an issue I had was the 4g of saturated fat. Another negative was that the bar had 190mg of sodium. The average American gets far more sodium in their diet than recommended so anytime you can avoid sodium, do so. The most impressive thing was when I looked at the carbohydrate section. It hard 18 carbs which is fine for a nutritional bar (anything under 20 is good), the great thing was that 6g of those were fiber. It is rare to find that many grams of fiber in a nutritional bar with only 18 carbs. The Atkins bar has half the sugar (3g) as it does fiber, which is also a huge positive. Seventeen grams of protein are packed into it making this bar pretty good from a caloric standpoint. It also has a variety of different vitamins and minerals that include calcium (55%), Vitamin A (25%), niacin (15%) and folate (15%).

All of that was not a huge shock to me; the surprise was in the ingredients. A soy nugget compound (soy protein isolate, oat flour, calcium carbonate) is the first item under the ingredients, which is an okay first ingredient. Glycerine is the next ingredient and is a chemical derived from glycerol. The downside is that this compounds is the backbone of triglycerides. Triglycerides are a form of fatty acids that have been linked to various heart diseases. The upside of glycerine is that it is a sugar substitute that does not raise blood sugar levels. Polydextrose is the third ingredient and is likely where this bar got the majority of its fiber. It is technically classified as soluble fiber, so I give polydextrose a thumbs up. The fourth ingredient is hydrolyzed collagen, which is essentially an amino acid compound. Amino acids are building blocks to proteins and collagen has 8 out of 9 essential amino acids. I don’t like the fact that it has chocolate chips (but it has to in order to have a chocolate taste), but I do like that it has cocoa butter. The rolled oats is a plus as it is another source of fiber, but the palm kernel oil is a negative. The rest of the ingredients are hit or miss, but mostly hit.

After the review, I will say that there are of course a few more bars that I think are better than the Atkins. But on the giant scale that Atkins stands, I like this bar over other major manufacturers. If you are in dire need of food and only have a CVS or Walgreens nearby, Atkins is probably one of the better bars you can grab. The Atkins Chocolate Chip Granola bar gets a thumbs up from me.

Healthy or Not? Healthy Rating : 7.5/10