Review of Luna Nutrition Bar for Women: Nutz Over Chocolate
Lunabars come in a variety of tasty, innovative flavors designed to appeal to even the oddest palate. Lunabars come in many tasty flavors, the four most recent being Caramel Nut Brownie, Iced Oatmeal Raisin, Peanut Butter Cookie, and Cookies’n Cream Delight. Other LUNA flavors include Nutz Over Chocolate, Lemon Zest, S’mores, Chocolate Pecan Pie, Toasted Nuts’n Cranberry, Chocolate Peppermint Stick, Dulce de Leche, Key Lime Pie, Cherry Covered Chocolate, and Chai Tea. With their bright blue, yellow, and red coloring, LUNA boxes are easily recognizable on store shelves.
Packages come including six bars, each containing 10 grams of protein, three grams of fiber, 180 calories (of which 40 are calories from fat), and 4.5 grams of fat total. The bars are high in vitamins and minerals like calcium and folic acid, containing 23 total, as well as antioxidants such as Vitamin A, C, and E. Ingredients include soy protein isolate, rice flour, and a whole host of organic items – oats, soy flour, roasted soybeans, milled flaxseed, evaporated cane juice, and peanut butter, all organically produced. In fact, 25% of each bar’s ingredients are organic. Other ingredients are brown rice syrup, sea salt, green tea extract, peanut flour, chicory extract, vegetable glycerin, palm kernel oil, cocoa, soy lecithin, and natural vanilla. The bars contain no hydrogenated oils, artificial sweeteners, wheat, or dairy. The bars still taste sweet as a result of the brown rice syrup and evaporated cane juice.
Lunabars are not haphazardly crammed with healthy ingredients chosen at random; in fact, they are carefully tailored to adhere to the national Institute of Medicine’s Recommended Daily Allowance for women. The body better absorbs certain vitamins and minerals (for example, calcium) when they are ingested in small portions. The ingredients of Lunabars are purposely constructed with this in mind. The creators of Lunabars also kept in mind the 2005 Dietary Guidelines, which state that consumers should limit their sugar intake and be choosy about what kinds of carbohydrates they eat. The average woman only consumes half of the daily fiber she needs, which is why the makers of Lunabars decided to include three grams of it in a form known as inulin, made from the roots of chicory leaves. Inulin is the most nutritious form of carbohydrate, since it both reduces cholesterol and helps intestinal health. Rolled oats, flaxseed, nuts, and dried fruit back up inulin as fiber sources in every Lunabar.
After eating one Lunabar (Nutz Over Chocolate, a delicious mix of peanuts on dark chocolate) at about 3 PM that served as both breakfast and lunch, I was full until dinner at 6 PM. The Lunabar I consumed didn’t go down chunkily or lay heavily in my stomach; it simply filled me up as if I’d eaten a normal meal. Designed as a healthy, vitamin-packed bar for active women that actually tastes good, Lunabars succeed wildly on the two levels of nutrition bar excellence – nutrition and flavor.
