Lying Chocolate Peanut Butter Bar

You may have noticed that in 2017 I not only continued to be honest about what is in the products we review but also ramped up my language. I'm just disgusted with the misleading labels and images on products that try to trick us into buying and consuming all types of products. If it's clothes, what's the most harm it can do to you other than your wallet? But anything you put in your body can harm you, too. Today we're looking at another protein bar that looks great on the wrapper but may not be what you think once you look more closely at it. I received this PowerBar ProteinPlus Chocolate Peanut Butter Bar for free using my Kroger Loyalty card; neither Kroger nor PowerBar knew they'd be subject to a feature article here on The Chocolate Cult. I'm doing this for all of you, Sisters and Brothers in Chocolate.

The first thing to note is that the bar looks much like it does on the wrapper minus the distracting mound of peanut butter, pieces of chocolate, peanut pieces in the art. Oddly the bar has almost no scent to it when I unwrap it. It continues to have little scent when I break it apart to take this photo and bring it up to my nose, the scent is bland, not even sweet, definitely neither peanut nor chocolate. Of course if we look at the label we see the "chocolate coating" is made with cocoa not chocolate liquor and certainly no cocoa butter. Nutritionally this bar is loaded with protein as promised, 20 grams of it, which is more than the 12 grams of sugars. It also has 4 grams of dietary fiber and only 3 grams of saturated fat. Not a horrible protein bar by any means though in terms of pure ingredients, particular chocolate, it is disappointing. The bars makes a light crunch when I take a bite and when I chew which is surprising since I see only what appears to be creaminess inside. The peanut butter is rather bland, not sweet but also not roasted either. As for chocolate, our most important flavor concern, I taste none of it. The chocolate coating must have used very little cocoa plus consider the photo above again, it is a thin coating over a lot of peanut buttery inside.  The texture isn't bad, the flavor isn't overwhelmingly sweet so I don't hate it, I'm just disappointed in it. This isn't something I'd buy again.

Now you tell me if you think it is fair for products to claim any "chocolate" title of they are only made with cocoa or are they lying to us? How do you feel about companies lying? Do you just assume they all do?