Odwalla Bars are one of my little splurges I often indulge in when I find myself at Earth Fare. A love the consistency of their bars, which is similar to a chewy cookie. As good as they are, I never somehow seem to get outside of my comfort zone with them, always sticking to the same flavors each time; usually the chocolate flavors.
Recently I received a shipment of bars from Odwalla, most of which were not the chocolate flavors, so I got to sample some of their other varieties, which I thought was pretty sweet.
Odwalla is predominately a juice company. I’m honestly not really a juice kinda girl. I’ll drink a little bit here and there, but usually don’t buy juice, although I’m dying to make some of my own in the Vitamix. Why haven’t I done that already? Anyway, Odwalla’s products are made with a mixture of organic and non-organic products. You can find out what percentage of each bar is organic on their website and on their labels (if that’s important to you), but from what I’ve seen, most bars are about 20-35% organic.
The first one I tried was the Super Protein. From the others I’ve tried, it is a bit chewier than the other bars and the taste of protein is definitely present, but not really in a bad way. This bar has less organic ingredients than the others (20%), but has 14 grams of protein. It tastes kind of like an oatmeal cookie.
One of my favorite bars is the Chocolate Chip Peanut.- My favorite and one I have tried before. I’m a sucker for chocolate every time. I love the crunch that the chips and nuts add to this version.
The Banana Nut is somewhere between a cookie and banana nut bread. It was so yummy and tasted way too much like dessert; a heartier banana bread. Although I’m partial to the chocolate varieties, this is one I would definitely buy.
If I had to choose between berry and other more dessert-type flavors, I probably wouldn’t buy the Berry’s GoMega before trying it. But, I really liked it. It had the same chewiness as the others but had a lot of dried berries which added some sweetness. This bar is rich in vegetarian omega-3’s.
The Strawberry Pomegranate went un-photographed, but I liked it just as I liked the Berries GoMega. The real difference in the two besides the slightly different taste, is the vegetarian Omega-3’s in the berry.
All of the Odwalla bars have a lot of vitamins (mainly A,C, and E) and antioxidants. Their list of ingredients is a bit long, but that is often the case with bars that taste really great. I try not to rely on bars as a major source of food in my diet so I think that in moderation, Odwalla bars, and other bars like them, are perfectly fine. There have been weeks when I have looked back on my eating and thought, “geez, I ate a lot of bars this week”. So, as someone who is making a concerted effort to eat mostly whole foods, I would buy these bars and will continue to (and enjoy them!), but I wouldn’t eat them everyday. That’s just my personal preference, but you’ve got to do what works for you.