Cookies & Caramel? My First & Last Fling With This Pria Carb Select Flavor
Written: Nov 05 '05
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Low impact carbs, ten grams of protein.
Cons: Uhm... what exactly is that mystery goo under the faux chocolate coating?
The Bottom Line: I tried it. I didn’t like it. End of story.
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| Freak369's Full Review: Pria Carb Select Cookies N' Caramel Triple-Layer N... |
Over the years I have tried a lot of different nutritional bars; low carb, high protein, meal replacement - you name it, chances are I’ve tried it. When PowerBar came out with the Carb Select line I was interested in trying them out to sample the flavor combinations. You would think that the mix of caramel and cookies would be appealing ... and to some people this blend might taste awesome ... but I didn’t care for it one bit. Call me crazy but I could have sworn that I tasted some kind of raspberry in the goo that rests on top of the bar but under the fake chocolate coating. I am assuming that this is supposed to be the caramel that’s mentioned in the title but I have a hard time believing that it is caramel. In fact, as I take yet another bite of it, it has that sugary sweet taste that you get when you bite into a chocolate covered cherry. Maybe I got the wrong bar in the wrapper, maybe my taste buds are screwed up ... maybe this bar flat out sucks.
Pria Carb Select Cookies n’ Caramel
When ever I try out a new bar I always like to give it the benefit of the doubt; if I don’t like it the first time I try it I do give it a second chance. You never know when something you ate or drank could affect your ability to get a good grasp on the taste of something. The first time I tried this flavor I was heading out the door of the gym and grabbed a couple of these off the front counter. I didn’t really pay attention to the flavor of the bar - from the purple wrapper I assumed that it had some type of fruit flavor to it - I mean, you would expect something called ‘cookies and caramel’ to be in a light brown wrapper. The bar does go down easily but you get this weird after taste - again - sort of like you just ate a chocolate covered cherry. That syrupy taste is what I am talking about, not the taste of the actual cherry. I was dead hungry so I didn’t really care about the overall taste at the time, I needed to eat something right then and there before I snapped and hit a fast food drive through.
One thing that is a firm selling point of the series of bars is that they have a low impact on your blood sugar level. This is thanks in part to the sugar alcohols that make up most of the carbohydrates in the bar. If you are doing a low carb diet then these are a great thing to have as a snack but don’t go overboard with them and start gobbling up three or four of them a day- if you do you can and will feel the effects of consuming things with a high sugar alcohol content [translation, diarrhea] I didn’t experience that with this flavor but have had it happen when I consumed other products that were high in sugar alcohol. The bar does give you some essential vitamins and minerals along with ten grams of protein; it has 170 calories, 60 of which are from fat. This is not meant to be a meal replacement bar, it is something to have between meals - not something that you have instead of one.
When you cut the bar in half you see the bottom layer - what I am assuming is the cookie part of the bar. On top of that there is a mystery goo, logical thinking leads me to believe that this is the caramel but it tastes like no caramel that I’ve ever had. The bar is wrapped in what looks like a dark chocolate, it’s not that thick of a coating but it’s not so thin that it flakes off when you are eating it. The bar is 1.69 ounces so even if you tried to make a meal out of this you couldn’t. It is enough to hold you over until you can have something that will fill you up but that is only if you like the taste of the bar. You might try this and really like it so don’t take my words in this review as the gospel. You can find these at most health food stores as well as larger Wal-Mart and Target locations. The average selling price for these is about $1.25 but since I picked them up at the gym, I got raked over the coals and paid $1.95 a bar. Even if it did taste like cookies and caramel, it would be a cold day in hell before I would pay that much for a bar like this. $1.25 yes, $1.95 no.
The Stats
Calories: 170
Serving Size: 1 bar / 1/69 ounces
Carbohydrates: 22 grams
Fiber: 2 grams
Sugar Alcohol: 18 grams
Impact Carbs: 2 grams
Protein: 10 grams
The Bottom Line
To me this would be a ‘last resort’ kind of bar; something that I would eat if I were starving and had nothing else to eat. The flavor isn’t bad but, to me, it isn’t cookies and caramel. There are still a few flavors in the Carb Select line that I have to try before I pass judgment on the whole thing and I sure hope that they are a little more impressive than this one. It does leave you with an after taste and if you are dieting that could be a good thing or a bad thing. It’s good if the bar satisfies your craving, it’s bad if you still feel a little hungry and are near tempting foods. Every person is different and if you handed these bars out to a hundred people you would get a hundred different answers if you asked them what they thought of it. I won’t flat out say that this sucks - it’s just not something that appealed to me. If you are adventurous you might want to give this a try to see if you like it but don’t go all crazy and get a box or order them online. Pick up a single bar and give it a try, if you like it then by all means, knock yourself out and buy them by the box or case to save a nice chunk of change.
As always, thanks for the read!
~^V^~ Freak ~^V^~
© 2005 Freak369
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Recommended:
Yes
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