Nakd Crunch Bars

Okay people, it's time for a review of some good olde fruit and nut bars. 

These are like the traditional Nakd bars (I really must do a review of those some time) except that they contain soy crispies, making them higher in protein, but not one of your five a day. Depends what your priorities are I guess. 

I've no idea how I am supposed to describe the texture of these bars. I want to describe them as both hard and soft at the same time. The thing that strikes me as most similar in texture is the fudge that my brother likes from Thornton's. The 'harder' type of fudge as opposed to the 'softer' kind, but not hard like a cracker, or a biscuit, or a cereal bar. A solid-y fudge texture. If you try and squeeze the bar between your fingers, it wont give any; and it will bend slightly before it 'breaks' ('snaps' didn't seem to fit here.)

The soy crispies? I admit, I was worried. Really worried. Soy is a very versatile substance- it can be made into many terrible terrible things. (Have you ever tried Aldi soy milk?) Were my deepest fears with these bars realised? Nah. The easiest way to describe the soy crispies is like mini, solid rice crispie cereal. (FYI, I like rice crispies.) They were small enough that you weren't biting into some big hard lump, they blended in nicely to the rest of the bar, but still adding nice 'pops' of texture- I will stick with saying more crispy than crunchy though.

What else is great about these bars? They're made in the UK!

Nakd had 4 different varieties of their Crunch bars, Cocoa Crunch, Strawberry Crunch, Banana Crunch and Apple Crunch. I've tried all of them apart from the Apple Crunch, because I couldn't find that one anywhere. :(

My favorite was definitely the chocolate one!

The taste of the the coco crunch bar was a pleasant surprise! I hadn't tried any of the chocolaty Nakd bars before, I was very apprehensive due to the high possibility of a too dark, slightly bitter, highly powdery coco taste/aftertaste. I need not of worried. It's taste reminded me of chocolate tiffin. Definitely chocolaty, but not overpowering. All the components just happily meld together to make a nice chocolaty tasting bar. Not to 'dark' and bitter, and not too sweet either (so basically the nice medium between how my Dad and my Mom like their chocolate). And their was definitely no powdery aftertaste!

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't disappointed with the taste of this bar. It was really, really really lovely. It's just that I'd just (well, not right that second, I mean a couple of days before) tried the Berry Delight Nakd bar, and the flavour of that bar is really, really, intensely berry-ish. And so after that, the flavor of this bar seemed a bit 'pale'. Which is about right really, it's a strawberry bar, not a mixed berry bar. It is a lovely flavor, but if you want an intense berry taste, go with the Berry Delight. If you want the extra protein, this bar really does taste lovely.

The banana taste of this bar mixed together with the other fruits and nuts nicely, so that although you could definitely taste the banana, it wasn't overpowering, and you could taste everything else in the bar too. This means that the banana taste isn't too 'fakey'. It was a nice banana-ry taste. 

These bars are kind of high in sugar. However, they are mostly dried fruit, which is high in sugar. There is no added sugar, just the sugar that comes from the fruit. And if you are going to have a load of sugar, dried fruit is the way to do it, because it's full of good stuff, like iron. And fruit sugar is better than sugar sugar. And to be honest, they contain about the same amount of sugar as most cereal bars anyway. They aren't "low fat" bars- they contain good fats from the nuts- but they are kinda low in fat. 2.6g per bar really isn't that much. Also, unlike many other "snack/cereal" bars, there is no added salt. Again, just that that occurs naturally. They are (for a snack bar) fairly high in protein. 5.5g per bar, although not 'high' like half a block of tofu, is not to be laughed at! (I'm using the numbers from the Cocoa one btw). And there is no artificial stuff, which is always nice. 

Okay, they are not cheap. Bout 70-90p per bar. Yeah, not cheap, but worth it. Not something that I could afford to eat everyday, but sometimes, yeah. 

So, to sum up, nice texture, convenient and portable (no bruised fruit syndrome here, nor is it obliterated into crumbs). Good taste (Cocoa is my fave). A bit expensive for a snack bar, but worth it for a not-every-day thing. No added horrible stuff, and good for you. So- all good, yeah?

I mean, it would be nice if the apple one would be more widely available so that I could try it, but we can't have everything, so just go try which ever one you can find, and be impressed.