White Chocolate & Raspberry Ripple R-Bars (CSN)

Ever since Reflex Nutrition contacted me in August and asked me if I'd like to review their awesome protein coffee (which I'm now slightly addicted to) I've had my beady eye on their R-Bars. Luckily for me, the lovely Nathan recently agreed to send me some. I reviewed Reflex's oaty flapjack style R-Bars last month, but I knew that these were more traditional style Protein Bars (sort of like Quest bars) and was eager to draw comparison. As far as Quests go, their white chocolate raspberry is my favourite, but I will only eat them at home because they're that much better when warmed up in the microwave.

As I've pointed out before, Reflex pride themselves on the top notch nutrition in all of their products and refuse to produce inferior goods. As such, their R-Bars are produced in their own state of the art factory here in the U.K, and include no palm oil, sugar, artificial colours, flavours or soy protein. The bars are made using E.U sourced milk protein, are sweetened with stevia, and apparently deliver Vitamin E through DeltaGold Tocatrinols (whatever they are).

"An amazing mix of real freeze dried raspberries and freshly roasted and ground almond nut butter blended with serious chunks of white chocolate. A wonderfully aromatic flavour which is simply irresistible."

The bar contained a good amount of white chocolate chunks, which were fairly evenly distributed. Raspberry flecks were also a prominent feature, although I couldn't detect any strong aroma.

The R-bar was softer than expected, much more so than a Quest, but still I decided not to beat around the bush and popped it in the microwave. I retrieved it as soon as the R-Bar started to swell and the chunks gave indication of melting (about 20-30secs). The now malleable bar tasted strongly of stevia wheras the raspberry was slightly lost in the background. The white chocolate had turned grainy, rather than silky, in the microwave -but despite my complaints the bar was still tasty.

Fortunately there was more than one R-Bar in the parcel, so I took the next one to uni with me to eat on the train home. I was unsure as to how I'd like it at ambient temperature, especially given that every bar I've tried thus far has tasted better warm. In actual fact, the cold R-Bar was a success! This time I could really taste the almond butter as well as the raspberry and the white chocolate. The non-melted chunks added extra texture, and I really enjoyed it. Hurrah! Finally, a protein bar that I can eat on the go without without wishing I had a microwave to hand.

I was kind (mad) enough to give one of the bars to a fellow gym goer at uni to see what he thought, and he couldn't even wait to finish his mouthful before proclaiming how much he loved it. If you're perhaps expecting a bar that tastes like Quests though -please don't. The R-Bar is less sweet, and tastes much more wholesome. If you're wanting your protein bar to deliver something more like a chocolate bar then opt for Quest, however if optimum nutrition is your game then you might want to try the R-Bars!

Other flavour R-Bars available: Cherry Bakewell, Chocolate Peanut Caramel, White Chocolate Apricot, Cookies & Cream and Double Chocolate Brownie. They are available to buy from most reputable sports nutrition retailers such as Cardiff Sports Nutrition, and I've also spotted them in Holland and Barrett!

White Chocolate & Raspberry Ripple R- Bar cals:211 Macros:P20/C10/F9.5

8/10

Again, a big thank you to Reflex for sending me the samples to review.