National Fitness Day 2018 and Chocolate?

Animal SNAK Double Chocolate Brownie 12

Today is National Fitness Day so were looking at a high protein food bar that is spun as the "best" for folks who are working out or who have a high activity lifestyle. Your Chocolate Priestess can't claim those titles but she does exercise regularly and for longer than the recommended 3 times a week for 30 or so. I work out 5 days a week for 30+ minutes at least depending on the week and my schedule but I do not work out 7 days a week. I learned that is too much for me and tends to make me want to quit instead of maintain a healthy regimen. I received this 12 bar pack of Double Chocolate Brownie Animal SNAK from Universal Nutrition via the Amazon Vine program in exchange for a fair and honest review on Amazon; this feature is an unexpected bonus for both Amazon and Universal Nutrition. No other form of compensation was received.

Website Label, Animal SNAK Double Chocolate Brownie, 3.3 oz bar

Let me begin by saying that I really wish the box had full nutritional values on it. The side of the box has "Who We Are" and a list of ingredients: "milk, soy, wheat, peanuts, almonds, coconut" that does not come close to matching the list on the bar's wrapper. The wrapper's nutritional information is black on a brown background making it difficult to read. Not cool for a company that wants us to believe that it is promoting health and fitness. I had to go online to make sure I could see all the information that I needed. This 3.3 ounce bar is 350 calories and that isn't far off from a real chocolate bar in terms of calories. It does have protein, 25g, but also 25g of sugars, the same amount making this more almost a candy bar in terms of nutritional balance. I love that it has 6g of fiber. It has a milk chocolate coating that is candy, it has whey protein crisp made with cocoa processed with alkali, surprisingly it has real chocolate chips made with chocolate liquor and cocoa butter and not added oils or fats, and finally more cocoa and chocolate flavors.

While I was sent this product to review via Amazon you can't buy this flavor there! They have two other flavors at this same link maybe that will change in the future. If you use this link to purchase, remember that you are also helping to support The Chocolate Cult so that we can go to visit chocolate locations and share those experiences with you all.

Inside Animal SNAK Double Chocolate Brownie

Aside from nutritional labels and weirdness of not being on sale from the place that sent it to me, how does this bar taste and did it fill me up after a workout? The bar is large and thick about 1 inch thick, yet each to break in half. It has a strong peanut butter scent to it, no chocolate at all. Inside I can see the pieces of various ingredients including the little chocolate chips. In terms of taste it has a strong coating flavor meaning that I taste and feel the palm oil but the cocoa and chocolate is nearly impossible to detect and the peanut butter which was the fragrance is also barely discernible. In what way does this qualify as double chocolate? Certainly not in flavor. In terms of texture it is soft but chewy so it is a bit like a cakey brownie. Overall, disappointing but at least the whey and soy was not the primary flavors as happens in so many other protein bars we've tried. Because the flavor is so disappointing, I didn't want to eat more than one bite of this bar so this is not a good choice of protein bar for me, post or pre-workout.  But I shared it with a friend she loved it so remember, what we describe is merely our testers' opinions and they may not match your own.

Animal SNAK are a Universal Nutrition brand, one of three brands I can find under the Universal Nutrition umbrella. In general their products are geared toward weigh lifters but they have expanded into other types of products. I'd like try out some of their baking mixes frankly to see if they can make anything chocolate that actually tastes like chocolate!