Alternative Health Blog

Over the last few years, four Seattle-based Bastyr University-trained nutritionists, three in the same nutrition counseling practice together, routinely talked about the lack of nutritious and tasty all-natural energy bars on the market. Clients asked for recommendations and the nutritonists struggled to identify one product that was the perfect fit.

“Either the bars offered good nutrition but didn’t taste good,” said Minh-Hai Tran, one of those four nutritionists, “or the bars taste great but lack good nutrition.”

So Tran and her Zing Bar co-founders decided the world needed another energy bar. It helped that Tran had previously worked with an energy bar company and that the nutritionists had connections with a local family-owned food manufacturer willing to take on the numerous rounds of test-kitchen bars. It is no easy feat to make a bar that not only tastes good but remains stable as it is shipped and stocked.

The testing and product development started in earnest more than two years ago. Now Zing Bars are sold for about $2.50 per bar online (www.zingbars.com) and at select locations. The bars were first marketed nationally to health professionals like the Zing founders themselves who want to feel good about suggesting an all-natural energy bar. The next part of the plan is to distribute the bars in independently owned coffee shops, salons, spas and yoga studios.

“We actually call it a ‘nutrition’ bar to make the point that it is a great balance of protein, carbohydrates and healthy fats,” said Tran. “But taste is really important to us. We made no compromise on taste or nutrition. Life is too short to be eating things you don’t like.”

A note about taste of Zing bars: In a wildly subjective and drastically limited test, here are the findings about the three flavors of bar: The chocolate peanut butter bar is “wonderful,” said a 11-year-old girl from the car back seat. She was clearly not talking about the nutrition factor. This is a kid who is always hungry for something delicious right after school no matter how much lunch she has consumed.

“Too much almond for me, not enough blueberry,” said an 11-year-old boy and fruit enthusiast from the same back seat in critiquing the blueberry almond flavor. “But I like the peanut butter one a lot.”

The third flavor, oatmeal chocolate, reminded me, in the front seat, of homemade oatmeal chocolate chip bars I ate as a child. And that’s a good thing, not only its taste but the texture of the bar. All three bars provided some satisfying crunch and were not at all gooey like some protein-rich bars.

One of the big pluses of these bars is the protein content. Spend a few minutes in the energy bar aisle and you discover many bars don’t have much protein, which flies in the face of nutritionists who typically recommend including protein in mid-morning or mid-afternoon snacks for brainpower. The Zing Bars range from 10 to 13 grams in a 210-calorie serving.

For example, Julie Burns, a Chicago-based nutritionist who has worked with professional athletes and working parents alike, has long suggested that her clients pack or buy endmame (steamed soybeans in the pod or shelled) to go along with their energy bars in effort to boost protein.

It is not surprising that Zing Bars don’t contain trans fats. But the nutritionist/entrepreneur in Tran can’t resist explaining that while lots of energy bars tout the no trans fat line on their labels, there is a catch.“A number of bars contain fractionated palm kernel oil,” said Tran. “This type of palm kernel oil has no trans fat but it is an ultra-saturated fat that we don’t is any better or healthier than trans fats. We didn’t want palm kernel oil in any form.”