As you know, we love deep diving into fitness here at The Fit Brit.
Our team (and several girlfriends, boyfriends, kids and spouses!) had a lot of fun putting together this article, where we ordered the 15 best selling protein bars on Amazon and put them to the test.
Why?
Well, we eat a lot of protein bars around here. After workouts, for breakfast, any time really. It seemed like an obvious mission – to find the best protein bars in the UK. How fun, and delicious!
So what does the list look like? We simply went to the Amazon bestseller list and pulled the Top 15:
Then we ordered a box of each, split them up against the team, and starting taking notes!
A couple of weeks later after lots of chewy breakfasts and err, gassy adventures, we had our roundtable and made our final decision.
Our winners:
Best protein bars criteria:
To find a winner, we rated them out of 10 on five metrics, for a total score out of 50:
- Protein content
- Protein type
- Taste
- Price
- Ingredients
Protein content
A protein bar needs to have a good amount of protein! Ideally we wanted bars that had at least 20g of protein, the amount of a regular protein shake. Scores were given as follows:
30g+ protein: 10/10
25g+ protein: 9/10
20g+ protein: 8/10
15g+ protein: 7/10
12g+ protein: 6/10
10g+ protein: 5/10
8g+ protein: 4/10
Protein type
Not all proteins are created equal. There’s a big difference between low quality soy proteins and whey protein isolates sourced from pastured cows. Not only do we want a good amount of protein, we want high quality protein. They were scored as follows:
Very high quality protein (e.g. organic grass fed whey): 10/10
High quality protein (e.g. grass fed whey): 9/10
Quality protein (e.g. whey protein isolates, concentrates): 8/10
Quality protein blends (e.g. milk and whey concentrates): 7/10
Lower quality proteins like soya and rice: 6/10
Other lower quality blends: 5/10 or less
Taste
Taste is very subjective, so we did the best we could. None of us personally tried every single bar, so we just gave a subjective score. Remember what tastes good to us might taste horrible to you, and vice versa!
Price/Value
Value for money is also important. We don’t want to go broke trying to hit our macros for the day. We scored these on a basic pound for pound scale:
£5.00 per 100g: 4/10
£4.50 per 100g: 5/10
£4.00 per 100g: 6/10
£3.50 per 100g: 7/10
£3.00 per 100g: 8/10
£2.50 per 100g: 9/10
Ingredients
Are they packed with sugar? If they use non-sugar sweeteners, are they the good ones or the bad ones?
Are they packed with additives or preservatives? Or are they filled with organic nuts and seeds and coconut flakes?
We want the whole bar to be high quality, not just the protein. We analysed the ingredients lists, then gave a subjective score out of 10, doing our best to stay consistent across the list.
Our protein bar reviews
Read on for our in-depth reviews of each bar, our ratings, and why we gave them. In order of bestselling rank on Amazon:
Grenade Carb Killa High Protein Bars (Our Winner)
Protein content: 8/10
Each bar contains 20g of protein
Protein type: 8/10
Calcium caseinate, whey protein isolate
Taste: 8/10
A little on the sweet side, but the cookies and cream flavour was superb. Tasted like a chocolate bar.
Price: 8/10
£2.63 per 100g.
Ingredients: 6.5/10
Only 2g of sugar per bar (good). Lots of peanuts (okay). We’re not a huge fan of maltitol (here’s why), which acts similar to sugar in the body. We would’ve preferred solely sucralose as a sweetener.
Our final score: 38.5/50
Order here!PhD Smart Bar High Protein Low Sugar Bar
Protein content: 8/10
Each bar contains 20g of protein.
Protein type: 6.5/10
Milk protein, collagen hydrolysate, soya protein isolate. We like the collagen, but we’re not big fans of soya protein as sourcing and quality is unknowable which reduces this score.
Taste: 8/10
We like it a lot. Not too sweet. Interesting fillings.
Price: 7/10
£3.38 per 100g.
Ingredients: 5/10
23g of carbs per bar which is far too high in our opinion. We realise most of it (20g) is polyols and only 0.6g sugar, but polyols aren’t all innocent. In fact the ingredients list shows both maltitol and sorbitol, which are our least favourite polyols, especially if you’re keto. This would have been less disappointing if they hadn’t advertised these as “low carb”.
Our final score: 34.5/50
Order here!TREK High Protein Flapjack Gluten Free Bars
Protein content: 4/10
Each bar contains 9g of protein. Too low for us.
Protein type: 3/10
Soya protein crunchies. If we knew source (e.g. organic or not, place of origin) this score would be higher. Otherwise our vegan protein of choice is pea protein.
Taste: 6/10
Taste a little ordinary. Nothing bad but nothing you would buy especially for the taste.
Price: 8/10
£2.53 per 100g
Ingredients: 4/10
13.5g sugar in a 50g bar is way too high. We’re also not a fan of the vegetable oils or the rice syrup. We like the gluten free oats and the coconut, and we’re glad the sugar is raw cane sugar. But not an impressive ingredients list overall.
Our final score: 25/50
Order here!PhD Nutrition High Protein Flapjack+ Bars
Protein content: 7/10
Each bar contains 19g of protein.
Protein type: 7.5/10
Milk, gelatine and whey blend.
Taste: 6.5/10
Just okay. Bit cardboard-ish.
Price: 8/10
£2.55 per 100g.
Ingredients: 6/10
High carb count which isn’t necessarily bad depending on the source. This seems mostly to be from oats and some polyols. It’s reasonably innocent otherwise.
Our final score: 35/50
Order here!FULFIL Vitamin and Protein Snack Bar
Protein content: 7/10
Each bar contains 15g of protein
Protein type: 7/10
Milk protein.
Taste: 8/10
We did the hazelnut whip and thought it was great. Tasted like a chocolate bar!
Price: 4/10
£5 per 100g
Ingredients: 7/10
Only 1g of sugar per bar. 12g of carbs which will be polyols (sweeteners). Contains maltitol and soy oil. Overall nothing else too sinister in the ingredients list, and even contains some added vitamins.
Our final score: 29/50
Order here!Battle Bites High Protein and Low Carb/Sugar Bars
Protein content: 8/10
Each bar contains 20.5g of protein
Protein type: 7/10
Milk and soy blend, hydrolysed collagen, whey concentrate, calcium caseinate.
Taste: 8/10
For a protein bar, they’re actually amazing.
Price: 7/10
£3.42 per 100g
Ingredients: 4/10
The ingredients list is extremely long, wheat flour, glucose syrup, plus a whole bunch of things you can’t pronounce. As a general rule, short ingredients lists are best.
Our final score: 34/50
Order here!Misfits Vegan High Protein Low Sugar Bar
Protein content: 7/10
Each bar contains 16g of protein
Protein type: 7/10
Pea protein isolate, soya protein isolate
Taste: 8/10
We tried the chocolate orange flavour, and were surprised at how good it was.
Price: 6/10
£3.51 per 100g
Ingredients: 7/10
We love the 5.8g of carbs per bar and 0.8g of sugar. This is a vegan bar so no milk products are in it. Rather standard ingredients list in most respects, we do like the stevia sweetener over low quality polyols like maltitol.
Our final score: 35/50
Order here!Optimum Nutrition Protein Bar
Protein content: 8/10
Each bar contains 20g of protein
Protein type: 8/10
Milk protein isolate, whey protein isolate, calcium caseinate, hydrolysed whey protein isolate, whey protein concentrate. Good blend of high quality proteins.
Taste: 6/10
A little ordinary (typical protein powderyness). Wasn’t our favourite.
Price: 5/10
£4.12 per 100g.
Ingredients: 6/10
A few things we don’t like. The maltitol and sorbitol sweetener, the soy protein crispies (they’re okay in a small amount, but just thought we’d note it). The protein dark chocolate coating is a nice touch. Overall, just okay.
Our final score: 33/50
Order here!Barebells Protein Bar
Protein content: 8/10
Each bar contains 20g of protein.
Protein type: 7/10
Milk protein isolate.
Taste: 8/10
We tried the hazelnut and nougat. Delicious.
Price: 5/10
£4.24 per 100g.
Ingredients: 6/10
1.7g sugar per bar. 14g carbs, mostly made up of polyol sweeteners. We like the high cocoa content and the collagen, overall the rest are reasonably standard protein bar ingredients.
Our final score: 34/50
Order here!Warrior Solo Protein Bars
Protein content: 5/10
Each bar contains 11g of protein
Protein type: 7/10
Milk protein.
Taste: 8/10
We tried both flavours. Double choc was standard, but the lemon cheesecake is extremely good.
Price: 8/10
£2.74 per 100g
Ingredients: 6.5/10
0.9g of sugar is a great start. The 8.6g of polyols is forgivable as its sucralose, which we don’t mind. The two things we dislike are the wheat gluten and the sunflower oil. Overall it’s not too bad.
Our final score: 34.5/50
Order here!RXBAR Protein Bar
No products found.Protein content: 6/10
Each bar contains 12g of protein
Protein type: 8/10
Egg protein.
Taste: 8/10
The salted chocolate is very simple, and excellent.
Price: 6/10
£3.68 per 100g.
Ingredients: 8.5/10
Made with free range egg whites. Soy and gluten free. We’re not concerned with dairy but it’s also dairy free. This bar is all natural ingredients, so dates, nuts, blueberries and egg whites. For a protein bar that doesn’t taste terrible, that’s pretty great. 15g of sugar lets it down, but it’s all from dates which gives it a hall pass.
Our final score: 36.5/50
No products found.Snickers Hi Protein Bar
Protein content: 8/10
Each bar contains 20g of protein
Protein type: 7/10
Whey protein concentrate, hydrolysed collagen.
Taste: 8/10
Tastes like Snickers!
Price: 5/10
£4.22 per 100g
Ingredients: 5.5/10
Not great. 20g carbs, 9.5g sugar. Contains a lot of peanut and peanut flour and milk based proteins. One of the few bars on the list that contains just straight sugar, rather than sweeteners that will soften the impact on your blood sugar.
Our final score: 33.5/50
Order here!Muv Food For Action – Low Carbs Protein Bar
Protein content: 5/10
Each bar contains 9.7g of protein
Protein type: 8/10
Milk protein isolate, whey protein isolate
Taste: 6/10
We tried the cookie dough chocolate, not the best. A little hard and dry.
Price: 9/10
£2.50 per 100g
Ingredients: 6/10
5.8g of carbs per bar, which is quite a lot considering the bar is only 30g. Once again maltitol rears its head, which we dislike. This also contains erythritol which is much gentler on your blood sugar, we’re not sure why more bar companies don’t just stick to that (we’re guessing it’s due to cost). Other than that, pretty standard.
Our final score: 34/50
Order here!Optimum Nutrition Crisp Bar
Protein content: 8/10
Each bar contains 20g of protein
Protein type: 6.5/10
Soy protein isolate, whey protein isolate, milk protein concentrate.
Taste: 8/10
We went for the marshmallow and it was like one of those sugary cereal bars you had when you were a kid.
Price: 8/10
£2.53 per 100g.
Ingredients: 5.5/10
17g of carbs per bar, mostly from the sweeteners. 3.8g of sugar, which is moderate. Wheat flour we weren’t too keen on.
Our final score: 36/50
Order here!
Nature Valley Protein Bars
Protein content: 5/10
Each bar contains 10g of protein
Protein type: 5/10
Soy protein isolate
Taste: 8/10
We went for the peanut and chocolate – tastes like a good old fashioned muesli bar with quite a lot of sweetness to it.
Price: 9/10
£1.56 per 100g.
Ingredients: 4/10
39% peanuts, 8% chocolate. Also contains a lot of sugars – fructose, glucose syrups, plus refined sugars and chicory root. Overall you get what you pay for – good tasting bars but not the healthiest.
Our final score: 31/50
Ready to buy? Here’s our winners table again:
If you’re looking for more ways to hit your protein macros, check out your reviews of the best whey protein powders available in the UK today.
Featured image: Marco Verch under CC 2.0
Last update on 2024-04-08 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
