Product Review: FullBar

I was graciously sent some samples from Fullbar.


The principle behind the Fullbar is to eat a bar 30 minutes before your largest meal of the day (or 2 largest meals) with a glass of water. It's supposed to work like GBS, where your stomach is smaller so you eat less, only without the surgery.
Below is the caramel apple bar.
Ingredients - Brown Rice Syrup, Puffed Wheat Cereal (Durum Wheat, Ferric Orthophosphate, Niacinamide, Thiamine, Mononitrate, Riboflavin), Soy Protein Concentrate, Caramel (Corn Syrup, Sugar, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Nonfat Milk, Fractionated Palm Kernel Oil, Cream, Milk Protein Concentrate, Natural Flavor, Salt, Soy Lecithin, Disodium Phosphate), Honey, Evaporated Apples, Gum Arabic, Glycerin, Agave Syrup, Canola Oil, Natural Flavors, Caramel Color.

First off, these bars are huge! Extremely light, though. They kind of remind me of Sugar Smacks cereal with the puffed rice. The flavor was nice, and it was chewy rather than crispy. It did make me full after having with a glass of water. I kept wanting to compare it to a protein bar, but it was way different from any type, from Luna to Zone to Balance. It's a different texture all together.

For me, a product like the bars doesn't make a whole lot of sense as I count calories, so unless I were going out to eat in a buffet situation, the calorie count of the bar itself (140 - 170) is a bit of a hinderance to my normal meal. I do, however, see using it as a snack in and of itself. It has some protein, a good amount of fiber and carbs - so not a bad snack to have post workout or pre workout. Plus its lightness would be good pre workout instead of a dense protein bar.

The Aquafull products are more of interest to me in that it's like a Crystal light, only with fiber. That's pretty neat! 4 grams of fiber in each packet and 15 calories. You just pour into your water bottle or glass of water.
I am going to make the suggestion that they try using stevia instead of sucralose, though. I don't drink sweetened drinks, but my husband does. He likes the idea of these a lot.

When you purchase these direct from the site, they come out to a little less than $1.25 per bar, which is on par with most other MRP bars on the market. Not sure what these cost individually in the store.

Giveaway: Country Bob's Sauce

It's Giveaway time!!
Country Bob's generously provided me with 2 bottles of Original All Purpose sauce to review.

I tried the sauce both cooked and as a dipping sauce. As a dip, the sauce is similar to A-1, although a little thinner consistency. It has a nice mix of sweet and sour notes, and almost a Worcestshire sauce flavor to it. I also used it as a sauce to cook with, and I think where the sauce shines the most. It cooked down into a sweet, thick sauce - really like a barbeque sauce. It makes me wonder what their BBQ sauce tastes like!

The ingredients are pretty good: Tomato concentrate, vinegar, corn syrup, sugar, molasses, salt, onion powder, caramel color, garlic powder, tamarind, corn starch, natural flavors and other spices. Side note - I was surprised to see tamarind in there. This is commonly used in Indian cooking, and is a sour fruit. Sauce is 25 calories per tablespoon - so not bad at at all!

I give this a thumb's up :) I believe that this product is available in Wal-Mart, so check it out!

Contest Details:
So, the company has generously offered 2 winners to receive 2 bottles each! You have 2 chances to enter. One is to leave a comment on this blog stating how you would use Country Bob's sauces. The other is to leave a comment on my weight loss blog regarding this same contest. Bonus entry for you if you leave a separate comment where you have a link to this contest (which I will check :) ).
Winners will be drawn by a random number generator on Thursday Feb 12th! Entries must be in by 8 am EST on the 12th. I will choose one winner from each blog comment section.

Have at it!

SoyJoy Bars

I thought I would give a SoyJoy bar a try today. They seem pretty innocent, and made from all natural ingredients. I don't always buy it when a company says "all natural" on their labels (ProMax, I'm looking in your direction!!).
However, SoyJoy has soybean powder, sugar, raisins, butter, eggs - pretty much normal ingredients. I was kind of surprised.

It's a tiny thing, though. This is after I took a bite, but I think it is about the size of 1 Twix bar.

It looks like I ate the bar at midnight, but I really ate it right after the package photo above. The difference between flash on (this pic) and daylight (above pic).

The flavor was pretty good. Kind of cake-like, but firmer. A little sweet though. It only has 4 grams of protein for 130 calories, but way better than a 100 cal snack pack, right?
At least in a pinch I know I could grab this if I don't want a 200 calorie Zone bar.

Larabar Cashew Cookie

Instead of chocolate in my stocking, I was presented with some natural food bars, what fun! I hadn't ever tried a Larabar, so I wasn't sure what to expect. The stats are decent, but not a whole lot of protein. Then I actually looked at the ingredient list and there were 2 things: cashews and dates. And it's in bar form:


So, of course my mind is whirling thinking about how I could make this myself and add some protein powder. Might be getting some dates on the next shopping trip! This bar was quite tasty.