A Food Industry Expert Reveals The Shocking Truth About "Healthy" Energy Bars, Protein Bars & Paleo Bars (& How To Choose The Right Bar).

Words cannot describe how excited I am for today's show because it has been two freaking years in the making. That's all I'm gonna say. That's all I'm gonna say in this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show.

Manufacturers don't need to disclose what it is, and they use the rationale that that's part of their special sauce and they don't want to give that up. But in many cases, they just don't want to tell you it's there. The Kanawa, which is fre, referred to as baby quinoa and it's related to quinoa, but it is a higher density protein, it's hypoallergenic, it's completely clean. And it's also a perfect protein in that it has all nine essential amino acids in them. Harken back to your childhood when you're eating something, that's a good thing and we don't have to have the negative associations. And there's some really positive things about that.

He's an expert in human performance and nutrition, voted America's top personal trainer and one of the globe's most influential people in health and fitness. His show provides you with everything you need to optimize for physical and mental performance. He is Ben Greenfield.

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Hey folks, it is Ben Greenfield here and I'm going to make a confession to you. I used to be a pretty big energy bar and health bar addict. I mean like I would take like two to three bars on a long bike ride, like two to three bars for each hour of the bike ride. And I would always have like a handful of satiating a quote, healthy, paleo ish, unquote bars tucked away somewhere during a run or a long road trip or an airplane ride. You know, I'd typically be munching on some kind of a massive, like forearm size protein bar while I was wandering out of the gym after weight training sessions. Especially when I used to bodybuild and I struggled for years with things like chronically elevated blood sugar and friggin like gut rot, crapping out a straw, excess protein intake, my energy levels would go up and down. I was finding toxins on my blood tests. And a lot of people who depend on packaged foods, on health bars, on premixed shakes and all these Things out there in the health industry, they wind up constantly fighting this uphill battle against weight gain and oxidation, poor energy levels and BLO and gas and constipation. And you know, a big part of that isis really a big issue in the food industry. I mean, you look at energy bars and they can be chock full of sugar and starch, which cause, you know, blood sugar surges and triglycerides in the bloodstream and fat formation. And you know, if they don't have a lot of sugar, you know, a lot of times the sugar is replaced with artificial sweeteners. And we know those cancan have an impact on gut bacteria and they can have a neurotoxic effect. And in many cases, a bar has so much frigging protein in it that you get things like ammonia buildup and acidity and insulin spiking and bloating, gas constipation. All the issues that can happen with a whole bunch of peanuts and soy protein and whey protein and a lot of these things that can also cause food intolerance issues and allergenic issues. And then if the bar actually is healthy, it either tastes like cardboard or it falls apart in the heat or it's like biting into freaking tree bark if it gets cold. I won't name any names, but there's one that rhymes with Hauer bar that I just can't take snowboarding because it breaks my teeth. You know, they just haven't been tested like in the trenches by people who are out there living hard charging lives or like athletes who are competing in real conditions outside of some food lab, some whitewashed food lab. And I mean, I'm only scratching the surface of the issues and the truths about so called healthy energy bars or protein bars or paleo bars or whatever that are out there. So I wanted to get a food industry expert on the show to really take a deep dive into this stuff and kind of pull back the curtain on what goes on with energy bars and some of the disturbing truths about some of the things I've heard from talking to this dude who's my guest on today's show. Things like natural flavors and IMO's and processing and preservatives. And I also want to go into what it takes to actually put together an actual clean, hypoallergenic energy bar that holds up under the conditions of people living like a hard charging lifestyle. And the kind of bar that I use personally when I need fuel and I don't want to damage my body with what's out There. So my guest name is David Ehrman, and David has been to my house. We've hung out together. I've been able to pick his brain on everything from ketosis to the food industry to bars. He's a lawyer. He graduated from the UC Berkeley School of Law. He practiced law for 10 years, and then he kind of jumped into the health and nutrition industry. He worked initially in the medical device management area and produced actually a breath ketone monitor I've talked about before on the show, the ketonex breath ketone monitor. He was integral on the development of that, and that was kind of how I first met him. And then he also launched into the production of a lot of kind of ketogenic friendly foods, including a bar that has helped out a lot of people. And I'm certainly not full on the ketosis bar bandwagon, but he was telling me a story about this bar he developed that really had a pretty significant impact on children, so we'll jump into that too. So he has a really unique background in business and food development and nutrition, so he's a wealth of knowledge on this stuff. You can grab all the show notes for everything that we're about to talk about over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com bar. That's BenGreenfieldFitness.com Bar. And, David, welcome to the show.

Dude. Ben, thank you. It's a pleasure being here.

Yeah. Oh, and by the way, like, why did you quit practicing law and get into, like, this industry, like, the health and nutrition industry?

You know, I had the opportunity to work with some clients who were in this industry, and it just looked like so much fun. That was a big part of it for me. The other part was that I went through some family issues where there were health issues in my family, and it just got me looking deeper into. Into medical diagnostics and ultimately nutrition.

So was that. Was that medical issue related to this. This ketogenic bar you developed, this. What was it called? The Charlie Bar?

It is indirectly. My. My dad was. My stepdad was a diabetic, and he was using kind of the wisdom of the seventies to deal with it. And some of that was. I don't know if you ever heard about the Pritikin diet.

Yeah, it was a.

It was actually a very high carbohydrate intervention.

Yeah. Ironically, I interviewed Denise Minger. Like, it was actually a pretty controversial interview, like, a couple years ago, and we talked about, you know, diabetic management and how there's, like, a few fringe studies out there that actually show that the Pritikin diet, oddly enough, can actually have an impact on diabetes. But she had some, she had some, some things she pointed out when it comes to that diet in terms of some other issues that it creates. And then she even took a deep dive into this thing called the Randall Equation talk, how if you're gonna use like a carbohydrate based diet to manage diabetes, you can't touch fat at all. And in my opinion, you know, you're basically just, just looking at more pancreatic exhaustion when you're, when you're doing a high carb diet. But yeah, the Pritikin diet. Whole grains, right? Whole wheat bread, brown rice, whole wheat pasta, oatmeal, all that jazz.

Exactly, yeah.

And by the way, for those of you listening in, I'll link to that Denise Minger podcast in the show if you want to listen to it. Just go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com bar so your dad, what was going on?

Well, my dad was going through severe diabetes. He ended up having to have an amputation. And by the time he started utilizing some of the recommended interventions, it was probably too late. But it got me reading up on stuff early on in my life. And by the time I practiced law for about 10 years, I realized that there were other things that I was a little bit more interested in. And that's how I started getting involved in the nutrition industry.

Gotcha. And so this medical device, this ketones, when did you develop that?

That was later in the process. I initially developed a device for the measurement of oxidative stress.

Oh, really?

Yeah. I had read a book by Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman that was published about almost 15 years ago called the Fantastic Voyage. And it was all about the free radical theory of aging and how in Ray Kurzweil's mind, extreme supplementation could potentially solve a lot of the issues with oxidative stress. It got me talking to Terry Grossman about what the current measurement systems were for oxidative stress. And most of them were invasive. There was something called T bars, a blood test for oxidative stress that almost nobody took. And so the company Pulse Health developed exhaled breath condensate measurement system for measuring aldehydes in the breath.

Really? Aldehydes being like a measurement of how much oxidative stress that you have?

Exactly. It's a lipid peroxidation byproduct. And so you're looking at that with the ultimate goal of making it easier for consumers to self measure.

Free radical damage really does that. Does that device still exist, by the way?

Not only does it still exist, but it's just gotten developed after 10 years. It's. It's essentially a. It's essentially a spectrometer that is going to be under $2,000, which is pretty phenomenal, given what GC master.

So this isn't something that like some. Somebody's gonna like, buy at Walgreens and stick in their purse. Then it's a little bit more advanced than that. This is something you have done at a physician's office.

We're not there yet, but it's something in a physician's office and we hope ultimately will be something that a consumer can buy for under $500 if they really want to get serious about this.

What's it called?

It's called the Revolar device. That means to reveal in Spanish. And it's manufactured by a company by the name of Pulse Health. And there's people who've been working. I left the company in 2012 when I started with what I'm currently doing. But there's phenomenal people over there who've put this out to market. It took a lot of money to develop. And it's measuring aldehydes in the picomolar levels now.

Revelar R E V E L A R I'll link to it. I mean, we have a lot of docs who listen to who might be interested in using this in their practice, because usually to measure oxidative stress, instead of measuring these aldehydes that you're talking about via the lungs, you'd. You'd do like, you know, HSCRP and cytokines and. Exactly. Blood inflammatory products. That's really interesting. I didn't know that you developed that. That's pretty cool. And. And for those of you listening, and I'll also link to that, that Ketonix breath ketone monitor. If you guys want to see this other pretty cool device that David helped develop, which you. You again, same thing. Rather than taking blood, you blow into it and it tells you whether or not you're. You're in ketosis or what level of ketosis you're in. It's actually pretty. It's pretty convenient. So. And then you have this ketogenic bar you create. You were telling me about this Charlie bar, and you sent me an email yesterday of this picture of a little girl that was holding the bar and you said it had. Was she like, epileptic or something like that?

Or.

What was the deal with the Charlie bar? Why did you develop that she was.

And I mean, that goes back to the relationship I developed when the ketosis monitor was being worked on. I interacted with the bariatric profession and I met the CEO of a food manufacturer, Rod Egger, at Bariatrics Nutrition. And Bariatrics is a family business that started actually in the 1900s. And Rod is the fourth generation of that family. And he had been involved since the 1970s in developing foods that were involved in protein sparing diets. And Bariatrics is one of the top suppliers to the bariatric industry, to clinicians, hospitals, and doctors of high protein snacks. The recidivism rate for highly obese and overweight patients is probably about 90 to 95%. Once you lose weight, you, you get it back. And so it's not a very high success rate. And Rod, who's pretty revolutionary in his thinking for somebody who's been part of a business for that long. So let's try some different things. And so he was open to healthier, more natural ingredients and looking at things like a ketogenic protocol. And so one of our first projects was to developed this bar with the Charlie Foundation. And the foundation was founded by Jim Abrahams, whose son Charlie had epilepsy. And a lot of people don't realize, but that a good third of children with epilepsy can't really have their seizures retarded by drug therapy. And ketogenic therapy has been used for many years for that, but it's not been widely disseminated to clinicians up until this foundation was created about 20 years ago. So Jim, myself and Beth, who's in charge of their nutritional protocols, started talking about this back in 2012. And about two years ago, we developed this bar with a modified ketogenic profile. It's a two to one ratio. And Charlotte was one of the first, one of my first customers. She's here in the Washington, D.C. area where I live. And I was able to hand deliver a box of bars to Charlotte and met her parents. And it was a really cool moment because Charlotte had never had a candy bar for her. And that was the beginning of the Charlie Bar. And it's been a great experience having that for, for the kids and a lot of adults.

You say candy bar, but I'm looking at the profile of this thing and I'll link to the Charlie foundation and this Charlie bar if you guys want to see it in the show notes. But it's got 2 grams of sugar compared to. Well, there's more sugar in a lot of These other bars that I know are out there, and I actually want to dive into that in a little bit, but that's a miniscule amount of sugar for a bar. And so people who are wanting to manage a ketogenic diet and still have, as you say, a candy bar or kids who want to, like, have a snack for on the go, they can eat this thing without spiking their blood sugar.

That's exactly right. That was the. That was the goal. So while it's not. While it's not a 3 to 1 or 4 to 1 ratio, a child can have that and stay in ketosis. Many of them would just have half a bar, but they were just thrilled to have a bar.

Yeah, well, at some point, maybe we can. We can dig into the ingredients of that bar. But I wanted to. I wanted to jump into some other things when it comes to bars, because you told me that. I think it was in the development of this Charlie bar that you began to find some big issues when it came to looking into some of the leading paleo bars or some of the leading health bars out there. I wanted to touch on what you found when you did this survey of both the general food markets and the general Paleo markets and what you discovered in terms of what was. What's going on in the bar industry.

Well, you know, I'm not a nutrition expert myself, but I've talked to enough of them, and I've triangulated what they've had to say. That if you look at the general industry, I think the best way to illustrate this is by just mentioning some ingredients. One of the most popular protein bars out there, which I. I won't mention right now, but if you don't.

Can't even tell us what it rhymes with.

It would rhyme with Jack Palance, or at least his last name, Palance.

Oh, really? Oh, I'm thinking like the Balance Bar.

That would be it.

Okay. Yeah. I'm honestly, like, I'm familiar with some of the bars out there, but I avoid so many of them now. I guess I'm familiar with Quest. I actually had that guy on my show recently, Tom Bilyo. He's actually a cool guy. I'm familiar with the Quest bar, The. The. The Picky bar. I used to do that in the Bonk Breaker when I was racing. And then I've done a little bit of the Hammer bar. Of course, I'm doing a ton now of. I think, one of the bars we'll talk about later on. It's like my. I'm holding one right now. Crinkling. And it's a. Well, we'll save that one for, for later. My, my new favorite bar of late. But this balance bar, you, you said that you've, you found out stuff about the balance bar.

Yeah, that was one of the first ones I took a look at because it's available in both general stores and specialty stores all across North America and kind of like the power bar, very popular bar that people tend to connote with a healthy high protein bar. So if you take a look at the ingredients and if you don't mind, I can list a few of them off for you.

Go ahead, dude. I'll set up a special mailbox for the letters from their lawyers later on.

And I'm reading directly from the ingredient label. It has a protein blend of casein, soy protein isolate and whey protein isolate and milk protein isolate. It has. The next ingredient is glucose syrup, sugar, glycerin, whey protein concentrate, high maltose corn syrup, fractionated palm kernel and palm oil, inverted evaporated cane syrup, peanuts, water, maltodextrin and partially defatted peanut flour.

It sounds so, sounds so balanced.

It's got just about everything you could imagine.

Dude, that's, that's like the label of an insure, the, the doctor approved insure shake that they get people at hospitals. It's basically like second down nuclear waste mixed with sugar.

It kind of reminds me a little bit of. I attended a lecture once where.

The.

Lecturer went through the ingredients of nacho cheese flavored Doritos and Velveeta. But people don't usually equate Velveeta with something that's healthy. They do tend to equate this with that. And that I think is part of the danger. So you have things like casein and soy which have allergens in them and you know, clotting promotion properties and glucose syrup, which has no nutritional value. Maltodextrin, which is a thickener, very useful in the, in the manufacturing process.

Yeah, also, also a freaking gut bomb with if you have too much maltodextrin. I mean that I, I ran into that issue when I was racing triathlon and, and by the way, you mentioned some of those allergenic proteins in there, you know, like peanuts and soy and whey. And I know that even like whey, it's got a very good amino acid profile. But Rob Wolfe and I were talking about this on a recent podcast. How many times you'll see people experience a blood sugar response to a food. You wouldn't even think would spike their blood sugar. Something like a soy protein or a whey protein or peanuts or something like that. And in many cases, the blood sugar response isn't even because of the sugar. It's because you have such an allergenic reaction to that food that you produce a bunch of cortisol, and that mobilizes liver glycogen and spikes your blood sugar. So in many cases, you know, even if the bar doesn't have sugar, but it has all those nasty proteins in it, you're still getting a significant rise in both insulin and then cortisol and then blood glucose, along with all the. All the other immune system issues that can occur once you start to consume the more allergenic protein sources.

Well, that makes a lot of sense to me. And then you have some of the fibers that could also contribute to that. So there's a lot of. There's a lot going on and there's a reason perhaps why.

Wait, what about. What'd you say about the fibers?

Well, things like imo.

What's imo?

It's isomalto oligosaccharides, and it's essentially a highly processed, highly lengthily heated starch, such as tapioca or cassava, as an example.

Okay.

And the effect of IMO has been found to have a great glycemic effect on folks, well beyond any kind of postprandial effect, really.

But it's a fiber.

It's a fiber. It's been listed as a fiber. And so when you. If you look at something and you go, wow, it just has five net carbs, but it has 18 grams of IMO in it. In fact, that's part of the problem that the Quest folks had when they started their company and they addressed it to their credit, but there was a lawsuit just because of that issue. And that net carbs don't really mean net carbs.

So basically, when you're saying net carbs, you're referring to the actual carbs that would be considered to have a glycemic effects on the body. And you're saying that when you add IMOs to a bar, that that doesn't have to be on the label.

Correct. It's identified separately. And up until recently, bar manufacturers have been able to essentially subtract it out in their claims.

Okay, so even though it spikes blood glucose, you don't have to list it in net carbs.

Correct.

It's crazy.

That's changed also. Yeah, that's actually what's changing.

But that. But imo is just like a synthesized starch.

It's just. That's exactly what it is.

What's it made out of?

Typically, it'll be made out of. I mean, a very popular one is cassava root. So it has a natural source, and then it's heated into a syrup, and it has a slightly sweet flavor, but ultimately it's a binder. So it holds the bar together, and it also makes the protein more palatable. So those really hard, chewy bars that you have, you know, in the retail stores.

Right.

They're potentially 35 to 50%, IMO.

Holy cow. Wow. And that's all just basically stuff with the ability to spike blood sugar.

Correct.

So when you were doing this survey of bars, you did more than just the balance bar, right?

Yeah. I actually looked at some of the paleo bars out there too, and I was a little bit surprised because there's a number of paleo bars that are terrific from the standpoint of having ingredients that are consistent with Paleo philosophy, But many of them put a lot of sugar in it, like bacon.

Oh, dude, you're preaching to the choir. I'm about to go down to PaleoFX. At the time that we're recording this podcast, I'm going toto this big paleo event called PaleoFX. Great event. Not to shove it under the bus, but when you go to PaleoFX and you wander the expo floor and you actually look at the ingredients of most of the. Most of the people are there cutting up the little bars and handing out the samples and little white paper cups. When you grab the label, in many cases, the sugar contents up there with like a. Like a Snickers bar or three Musketeers. Like, it's. It's through the roof.

It's through the roof. I found some of the most popular. Some of them have actually modified themselves downward in the last couple of years, because I think they've gotten a lot of feedback. But there's still bars out there that are 50 gram bars, roughly a little over, you know, an ounce and a half, and 28 grams of them are sugar. So basically, half the caloric content is contributed from sugar.

Yeah. That's crazy. Maybe that's why I get so hyper during PaleoFX is all the bacon, coffee, and the sugar bars. So in terms of the actual flavors in the bars, the other thing I wanted to ask you about was natural flavors, because that's another thing you see on a lot of these bars when it says natural flavors. Is there an issue with that at all?

There Is. And there's a tension that I want to speak to because I've become empathetic with the manufacturing side of the business because I've been in it now for a few years. And if you're an R and D professional and there's some really good ones out there, you're essentially paid to make sure that the bar is shelf stable and tastes great. And there's some companies out there that do an amazing job of making protein taste delicious. And if it's not shelf stable, they're out of business is how they look at it. So those are, those are their circumstances and those are the parameters that they're operating under.

What. What do you mean, if it's not shelf stable out of business? You know, so people can order just like huge, huge pallets of bars and have them not go bad for a really long time.

Yes. Or sometimes the bars have to stay in inventory for a while before they get on the shelves, and they have to stay stable by the time you buy it and take it home.

How long is a while?

At least a year. That's the target for most of the manufacturers.

Okay.

Natural flavors was the result of negotiations between FDA and bar manufacturers. And natural flavors sounds like a very benign, positive thing. It sounds like you've got an all natural flavor product in there. But natural flavors, the. The definition of it in the FDAA is anything that's derived from something originally in nature, regardless of how processed it is by the time it gets there. So a natural flavor can include something like glycerin, corn syrup, or other things that have GMO in it. The manufacturers don't need to disclose what it is, and they use the rationale that that's part of their special sauce and they don't want to give that up. But in many cases, they just don't want to tell you it's there. And so it's really, It's a concern on the part of consumers. Enlightened consumers are pointing that out and they're putting pressure on manufacturers not to do natural flavors. But I would, I would estimate that 90% of the bars out there still have that category.

Oh, yeah. I see it on almost all of them. And it can include like, MSG is. Is allowed to be a natural flavor. Aspartame is allowed to be a natural flavor. I mean, the one it's. It's obviously kind of like overhyped, but I think the one that this gal, the food babe always talks about is, is like beaver anus gland or something like that is allowed to be a natural flavor. And. And I'm totally not one of those guys who's like, oh, if you can't pronounce it, or if a third grader can't pronounce it, it shouldn't be in your food. But at the same time, like, I think folks should just know that when something says natural flavors on a bar, in many cases there. There are like, glutamates and aspartame and. And actual chemicals that taste natural and that might have had some kind of natural thing in them at one time, but it's not really natural flavors.

And it's one of the last things that the manufacturers want to let go of because of the two factors previously discussed.

Yeah. Now I want to start to talk a little bit about my conundrum that I had because, frankly, one of my jobs that I do is I help to develop solutions to a lot of these issues. I put out podcasts like this. I help to develop supplements, I help to develop foods. And I went to you after I found out what you do with bariatrics in terms of how you developed the Charlie bar, and you'd worked with ketogenic foods and you understood the food industry the way that you do. And I had a bar that I wanted you to help me develop. I basically wanted something that would hold up when I was competing in really cold conditions and when I was out riding my bike for really, really hot races and didn't want to be picking warm, melted sesame seeds out of my teeth. And also wanted something I could not have to break my mouth chewing on when I was out snowboarding. And the other issues that I ran into were the issues that we had. Like, I wanted a bar that didn't have so much protein in it that it was going to say, like, accelerate aging and excessively activate MTOR and produce some of those allergenic issues with soy and with whey that we talked about. And I wanted something with a lot of minerals in it because I sweat a lot and because the adrenal glands are also a mineral storehouse and, you know, I'm beating up my body every day. And I wanted something for my adrenals as well. I wanted enough fiber in it to keep me satiated and to also stave off the notorious energy bar constipation. I wanted to support my recovery, like, my muscle recovery, with adequate amino acids and with adequate antioxidants. And I also didn't really want a ketogenic energy bar because I've gone that route before, and I've had these slightly greasy and fatty ketogenic energy bars that work well for ketosis, but for me, like, I'm more of a fan of, like, cyclic ketosis and maintaining adequate liver glycogen stores and adequate muscle glycogen stores. So I wanted to actually maintain some of that without necessarily spiking my blood sugar. So I wanted more of like, kind of like a. A low carb, high fat, moderate protein bar than I wanted like a. Like a very, very high fat ketogenic bar. And then, you know, finally, of course, you know, to return that whole tastes like cardboard issue, I actually, for me, in an energy bar, like, I don't like the ones that just, like, melt in your mouth and dissolve right away. I don't like the ones that are really hard, like, you know, like the power bar, for example, that you just have to chew the hell out of. But I also like to have, like, a good crunch. Like, a lot of times, like, I'm. I'm breaking up my energy bars and like, putting them into smoothies and. Or. Or I'm chewing on them, and I want them to actually taste like I'm eating a meal. Like, like the whole thing doesn't just, like, disappear all at once and then you're grabbing another right away. So I want, like, something crunchy with good mouthfeel. And so that's basically. That's basically what I came to you with. Like, frigging like it was two years ago. You know, you even came over my house and we were talking about this, and so I outlined all this to you, and then you kind of. You've kind of like, been in the. In the Batman labs for the past couple of years, working back and forth with me on trying to develop something like this. So if you're game, can we delve into what you actually wound up making or at least experimenting with back and forth with me?

Absolutely.

All right, Sweet. Okay, so I want to start here. I want to start kind of simple because we were just talking about shelf stability and preservatives. And when it comes to this bar, I didn't want to have many of these preservatives based on the issues that we just talked about. But I still wanted it to be able to just, like, you know, go in my gym bag or go on an airplane or whatever, or, you know, have a few in my pantry and have them not go bad, so, you know, or not have to, you know, keep them, like, in the refrigerator or the freezer. Like some of, like, the, you know, I guess, like, the real food bars that you see at the natural food store. So how do you make a bar actually be shelf stable and not have to be refrigerated or frozen, but not have a ton of preservatives in it?

Well, that's a great question. You know, there's a reason this took two years to get done because we had to pick our ingredients pretty carefully and create something that's a little different from, you know, the ingredient list that we were talking about before. So really what we have in this, in terms of things that keep this bar stable is sea salt and a little bit of vitamin E to. And then we have ingredients that are intended to hold up very nicely. Like almonds which contain vitamin E, like chia seeds that have a four to five year shelf life themselves. So I don't have to do anything to those to keep them shelf stable. And like cannabis, which is also very stable.

Which one did you just say?

Kanua.

Oh yeah, Kanima. I want to ask you more about that later. That, that's like kind of like the, the, the version of quinoa. Kanawa.

Yeah, that's right. It's sort of an exotic, exotic or baby quinoa.

Okay, got it.

I mean, we're still experimenting. There might be new iterations in the future, but this bar has held up very nicely. We've been able to keep it in our, our test lab and it tastes great under accelerated stability conditions. So we're very, very happy with it. But you know, we, we really don't have, we have a very short label and we basically just have those ingredients in it.

So basically when you've got ingredients like seeds, like kanawha, which we'll get into more, and chia seeds, which, which lasts a long time. I mean, I have a bunch of those in like mason glass jars in my pantry. They don't. And I don't have to put preservatives in them. And then once you add some vitamin E and, and these, these natural tocopherols which are basically that. That's essentially more or less like an antioxidant.

Right, correct.

And where, where what, where do you get a tocopherol?

You, you get a, you get a tocopherol from some foods like the almonds.

Okay, I got it. So it's like a component of, of of like seeds and natural components that are already in the bar.

Absolutely. And you're talking about very, very small amounts. I mean, the tocopherols are the very last ingredient in this bar. And you list the ingredients in order of their use. So there's less tocopherols than there is sea salt in this bar.

Yeah, yeah. Those are actually the final two ingredients in the bar. Sea salt and tocopherols and then chia seeds and this baby quinoa or this kanawha. And I want to ask you more about that in a second. But so essentially you don't need to add a bunch of added preservatives or natural flavors when you have components that are either going to hold up on their own, unlike say, I guess, a soy protein or a peanut or something like that. I know a lot of bars have this dairy chocolatey coating that requires more preservatives, which I didn't really want in my bar. And that allows you to have a bar without many of the preservatives.

That's right. You have very stable dark chocolates in this bar that taste amazing over time. And you've got nibs, you've got chocolate liquor, and that's it. So you're not talking about the stuff that's going to decolor. You're not talking about things where you need a whole lot of preservatives. And the seeds were a big part of that.

Yeah. But the, the way that the bar is actually put together and we can get into this in a little bit is such that. Because I know that I kind of annoyed you because I put it through the ringer one time I went in with one of the near completed products into my sauna. I did this for a week with one bar at a time. I'd bring it in the sauna for an hour and then I'd leave it in there for four or five hours with the sun on full blast and come back and just bite into the bar to see what it tastes like. If somebody were to put this thing in their back pocket for an Iron man triathlon, because I've used bars that have seeds in them before. And the problem is it's like melted bird feeder by the time it's actually been exposed to the heat for a long time. And I wanted to make sure some of these seeds that don't need preservatives actually hold up in the heat and it actually maintains crunch and everything after getting blasted to hell and back in the saunaand we could talk more about the other tests that I put it through and how much I annoyed you as we were going through this, but.

Did not annoy me. It was never, never came up before with any other.

Yeah, I know. You didn't have anybody actually Put, put a bar through, through all the, all the torture I put this bar through. But how about recovery? Speaking of torture, recovery. So how can you have a bar that gives you enough amino acids for recovery without it being like a high, high protein bar per se, you know, which we know has insulin issues, you know, insulin spiking issues with a high protein bar, which can also create issues when it comes to insulin sensitivity. But then also the other issue with spiking insulin and insulin like growth factor when you consume like a high protein bar is there's the mtor issues and the longevity issues which you know, we don't probably even have time to delve into today. But the idea is that excess protein can accelerate the rate at which telomeres short. And I didn't want to a high protein bar, you know that. And also the bloating and gas and constipation and you know, potential allergenic issues something like that can cause. But how did you actually get amino acids packed into this bar for recovery without just like dumping a bunch of whey protein or soy protein or having the bar be you know, like 60% protein?

It's really a question of coming up with investing in a high quality, highly efficient bar bioavailable protein. And the protein that we selected as sort of the top one on the list was collagen. And we did that because it is highly bioavailable. It provides all sorts of benefits. But as a short chain amino acid, we thought it was as good as you could do. And we were able to do that with a moderate protein load.

So the way you described it to me is that the bar has like about the equivalent of a cup of bone broths worth of collagen from I believe it's like German or Brazil grass fed cows that this collagen comes from. And I know that collagen peptides are very bioavailable with a lot of these short chain amino acids for repair and for recovery and for neurotransmitter formation, et cetera. But how do you actually get that much collagen into a bar? I mean, it seems like a lot of collagen. How does that actually work?

It, you know, it probably comes out to about five or six grams of collagen. Collagen is. Without divulging any kind of trade secrets, I can tell you that it is very difficult to work with for the R D folks because it's hygroscopic and it wants to suck up water. And you've got to find ways to make sure that it's staying stable and pliable. Like you said. This bar, which I have a crinkly little package myself here, bends beautifully. And it was just a question of balancing that with, with the unique binder that you ended up using, which was not imo, or even a fiber at all. And we'll talk about that, I assume later. But that added a lot of the pliability to the bar, in addition to the cocoa butter and other elements that are in this bar. But we were able to balance that collagen in there, and I think it worked really well.

Got it. So collagen would be similar to what I'd get from, from like a, like a gelatin source or a bone broth source, right?

That's exactly right. And one of the benefits, one of the many benefits, I mean, collagen is probably now one of the most talked about ingredients out there. It not only contributes to ligament health, it not only contributes to skin bone health, but it also reduces body fat through arginine and glycine. And it's also a great source of satiety. So we think it's a beautiful protein.

Yeah, exactly. And the other thing that can assist with actual collagen absorption and that is a component of some of these other higher tocopherol based ingredients you have in this bar is ascorbic acid and vitamin C. And that's kind of, that's why I always have like half of a squeeze of lemon mixed in with my morning protein smoothie that I add bone broth to is so that I can get that increased collagen absorption. But that's kind of of the same thing that you get out of this, out of this bar. So it's got a lot going for it when it comes to the collagen absorption. But then there's other protein sources too. Talk to me about, you know, we discuss why from an allergenic standpoint. A lot of times bars that use common proteins like whey protein isolate and soy protein isolate and peanut proteins, et cetera, they tend to cause a lot of issues for folks. So I didn't want any of those in this bar. But what did you go with instead for the actual protein sources? Explain to me how you came at this from a protein standpoint and why, like over and above just the collagen.

It'S, it's really interesting. And we never used this before, but we, we ended up with the, the, the kanawha, which is frequently referred to as baby quinoa, and it's related to quinoa but it is a higher density protein. It's hypoallergenic, it's completely clean. And it's also a perfect protein in that it has all nine essential amino acids in them. It's very clean tasting. So again, you're not getting any of that kind of protein fluid from it.

I actually think it tastes, tastes better than quinoa, personally.

I do too. I, I was pleased with it and it's, it's a great protein. And we also used pea protein in this, which there's a lot out there about it for, for its benefits in weight loss. It's actually very low in phytic acid. Even though it's legume, it has the lowest phytic acid level as far as I know of any legume that's out there. So it's virtually negligible. So it's got a lot of positives. And the other benefit of the quinoa or the quinoa that I didn't mention is that it has a lot of flavonoids in it. And that's a common theme actually in a lot of these ingredients. A lot of free radical scavengers in these ingredients are present.

Right. Without necessarily having to add like a bunch of synthetic vitamin C or synthetic vitamin E. Exactly. Now this, this Kanawa, the other cool thing that I like about it is it's got a lot of the minerals that I wanted to cover. I mean, I know you have sea salt in the bar, but Kanawha, you know, first of all, for those of you who haven't had quinoa before, it's got like this really crunchy texture. So quinoa is kind of fluffy, it's kind of soft. Both, of course. You know, I know many of you may want to ask this question right now, so I'll answer it. Like, you know, quinoa and kanawan, many of these seeds, they, they do have like this outer coating of saponins. And a lot of food manufacturers neglect like washing or soaking or sprouting, you know, many of these so called superfoods and so they wind up being a gut bomb. But this, this quinoa is not only, not only washed and treated properly so it doesn't have the saponins in it, you know, just like the, the pea protein in the bar, for example, has been treated properly. So the lectin content is very, very low. But the quinoa has things like iron and B vitamins and you know, the natural vitamin E that David mentioned. And then magnesium and phosphorus and zinc and copper and manganese. And so the cool thing is, not only do I, I think it's got a better crunch in it than quinoa does, but it's also just chock full of a lot of these things that I wanted to add to the bar, but I wanted to get from natural sources rather than having like dump in a whole bunch of synthetics.

Absolutely. I, I think that the combination of the collagen, the kanawa and the pea protein make for something that's completely hypoallergenic, high in mineral content, and really it's almost like an ideal protein combination as far as I'm concerned.

Yeah. So, so basically when you put the proteins together, you've got the collagen peptides and then P. Protein, small amounts of again another hypoallergenic protein, the rice protein, and then the kanawan, when you put all those together. And then of course, we didn't even delve into the chia seeds, which are one of the main fat sources, but that also have a number of amino acids in them themselves. Once you add all those together, you've got a whole bunch of highly absorbable proteins in a hypoallergenic format. So we've got all nine essential amino acids and everything that you would need. And you still maintained the flavor and the crunch without actually getting the allergenic issues or all the whey and the soy protein.

That's right.

Got it. Cool. And relatively, I mean, I'm not saying this is like a, like a vegan bar, but it, it really would be more of like a, a vegetarian or vegan ish friendly bar. Because there isn't the whey protein.

Exactly. I mean, you know, we're steering clear of the kind of that allergen matrix that's out there right now in the bar business.

Yeah, yeah, I love it. Okay, cool. So in addition toto proteins, of course, our other macronutrient would be fats. So I wanna talk about the fats in this bar and why you chose the fat sources that you chose. Cause you've touched onon chia, you've touched on cacao and chocolate, you've touched on almonds. So get into me how you like not just the fat content of the bar, because I know it's not full on ketogenic, but I want you to describe the fat percentage and then also why you chose the fat sources that you chose.

Well, the total fat in the bar, it's a, it's a very nice balance. It's about 20% of the bar by gram weight. And a lot of that is coming from the chia. We're using a white chia, which incidentally is the Mayan word for strength. So it's, it's a, it's an ancestral ingredient that's been discovered by the developed world in recent years as a superfood for a number of reasons, including the fact that it's high in fiber. It doesn't just provide a fat source, but it also has omega 3s, calcium, manganese, magnesium, phosphorus in high quantities. So it's a, it's a great fat source. We have chocolate liquor in this, which is not an alcohol, it's actually called liquor because it's in a liquid form, low processed chocolate that is equal part cocoa butter and cocoa solids. And at the top we have chocolate nibs, which are the basically or cocoa nibs, which is as unprocessed as you.

Can get, which I freaking love by the way. For me to be able to have helped create a bar that actually has cacao nibs in it, like I'm, I'm pretty stoked about that because that's like one of my favorite ingredients on the face of the planet.

Yeah, no, it's not out there. And you know, the star of the show in some ways might be the one ingredient that we haven't talked about, which is the honey. But the, the organic honey makes those nibs. The nibs combined with that, they're sort of this nice, very subtly sweet coconut almond combination that almost reminds me a little bit of a very healthy Mount bar. Yeah. Harken back to your childhood. When you're eating something that's a good thing and we don't have to have the negative associations. There were some really positive things about that and that's kind of what the notes remind me of.

Now, chocolate liqueur, if I understand correctly, that's like a low processed chocolate that's part cocoa butter and part cocoa solids. Right. So it's basically like you've got kind of like, like a bunch of cocoa fats combined with the chia seed fats. And then you've got the almonds added into that as one of the primary ingredients. The almonds are. And then coconut flakes, just basic medium chain triglyceride fiber source.

So you're getting all those things in there in a ratio where the crunch from the almond and the chia seeds gives you that crunchy experience. So in the food business you're referring to this as an organoleptic experience. What's the tangible experience from eating this bar? It's a crunch and a very subtle sweet with a little bit of sea salt in there, which almost accentuates the sweetness slightly without having to have chocolate. Yeah, it's cocoa. So it's this incredible combination that is very, very satisfying. And I've been. Matt was kind enough to send me some this weekend and I'm just about out of the two boxes.

I'm running out fast. I got three boxes shipped to my house and I've been giving them out to friends. And honestly, the fats combination of the white chia seeds, the chocolate liqueur, the cacao nibs, the cocoa butter and the cocoa solids, the coconut flakes and the almonds, it's like this perfect, almost hedonistic combination of fat and taste and, and again, like, like without all these natural flavors added in. So I'm, I'm extremely happy with the fats profile on it. Plus, it's not like these. I mean, I. Again, I don't want to throw anybody under the bus, but a lot of these, like greasier, these high fat bars, they're greasy. Like, you open them up and there's like this oily residue and like this greasy kind of mouthfeel inside the bar and they melt, you know. And again, one of my, one of my goals here was to create a higher fat bar that a freaking like, you know, ironman triathlete could put in their jersey pocket and take, you know, six hours out to Kona. But also something that would be able to hold up with me, say climbing a mountain in the snow or snowboarding and have the cold not make the seeds unchewable. And then basically also have a bar that I could just eat on an airplane or in a car. In my case, I've been crumbling it up into my smoothie. Pretty versatile. But I love the combination of fats that you developed. That you developed. It's hedonistic and, and flavorful. And I know that folks now are. Since you mentioned honey and how that especially that, you know, the, the sweetness of the honey combined with the bitterness of the cacao nibs is like a, a perfect. What'd you call it? An organoleptic.

That's what we call it. And it's just a fancy term for what the, what the eating experience is like.

Yeah.

Respond to it.

Carbs. So you talk about honey as the primary. I guess honey would be really one of the only carbohydrate sources in this bar. Actually. First I wanted to ask you, like, how'd you avoid before the honey, how'd you Avoid adding the synthesized starch, the. The IMO that you talked about earlier.

Well, really, that segues very nicely to the honey. I mean, as I mentioned earlier, probably 90, 95% of the bars out there, including the ones that you'll see at events like Paleo effects, have some sort of synthesized starch in them. Some of them will be from an apple fiber, for example, something that looks a little friendlier but still highly processed and will add glycemic effect once consumed. This bar doesn't have any of that fiber. Every single carbohydrate that's in this bar is disclosed fully on the label. And it's comprised principally of almost exclusively of organic honey. And so the honey is serving as the primary way that this bar is held together. We're not using any kind of fiber source.

So the organic honey is giving like the antioxidants and the minerals and like a slow time release carbohydrate based fuel source, but then also acting as the actual binder itself without you having to add the imo.

The beauty of this bar is that that's almost the case with almost every ingredient. Every ingredient is providing some functional benef in the bar to make it capable of being made by a bar manufacturer, but at the same time contributing all these other great minerals, antioxidants and energy sources.

And when it comes to not having the IMO and still actually getting enough fiber in a bar to where it's not causing things like constipation, if you happen to be on a hike, eating three energy bars during a hike day, or if you're mowing through a handful of these during a race or something like that, from what I understand, when you look at the Spanish almonds that are a component of the bar, that are of course a fiber source, and then cacao nibs, which I learned from you, they're like over 30% fiber by weight. And then of course, chia, in addition, being very, very kind of like healing and nourishing for the gut. They're about 40% fiber by weight. That's basically how you got the fiber without adding the imo. And then the raw or the organic honey is how you actually got the binding without adding the IMO.

No, it's amazing. You're getting 20% of a targeted fiber content, of course, using USDA guidelines, which I'm using loosely. But nevertheless, you're getting all that from the chia seeds, the nibs and the almonds, and it's pretty remarkable.

Yeah, so. So we avoid the IMO's and the starch issues. But a lot of people get concerned about fructose in honey. And I wanted to talk a little bit about that myself because, you know, when, when you look at fructose and a lot of, a lot of these studies that are done on, on fructose, and by the way, it's pure fructose, not the, not the fructose glucose natural mix that you find in honey, but pure fructose and this whole like fructose is evil thing. If you actually go and look at the fructose amounts used in those studies, they're the equivalent of like 15 plus servings of Coke per day. When you're finding things like fatty liver, et cetera, from, from fructose. And that's because fructose gets metabolized almost completely in the liver, you know, and it gets directed towards replenishment of liver glycogen and, and triglyceride synthesis. But the problem, of course, is when you do a whole bunch of, you get a huge fructose spillover. But when it's combined with glucose like it is in honey, and when we're looking at like organic honey as a slow release carbohydrate source, that's actually what I was looking for was something that wouldn't be an insulin. What's called an insulin secretagogue, meaning that, you know, many carbohydrates can spike insulin significantly, but fructose glucose mixes don't really do that. They can actually lower circulating insulin. When you look at that, combined with the fact that honey, along with things like blackstrap molasses or organic maple syrup, are a really good nutritive natural sweetener, it becomes a really, really. When you look at the carbohydrate percentage of the bar and you consider that the glycemic index of honey is really.

Low.

It'S actually not a concern. This fructose issue, it's far, far different than something like high fructose corn syrup. And I think I sent you over, David, some studies, like there was one study that looked at the glycemic and thermic effect of honey added to a meal and actually blunted the glycemic response, or it reduced glucose intolerance, meaning that there was like this positive modulation of appetite hormones and it delayed the postprandial ghrelin response. Meaning like you don't eat an energy bar and you're hungry for one later. Because the organic honey can actually lower the ghrelin hormone response. It can lower the ghrelin being the Hormone responsible for stimulating the appetite. And I found another study in the Journal of Medical Food and they compared honey to dextrose and to sucrose. And they found that natural honey actually lowered plasma glucose, it lowered C Reactive protein, it lowered homocysteine. And many of these subjects were diabetic subjects and also had hyperlipidemia or blood cholesterol dysregulation. And the honey was actually reversing some of those issues. And then there was another study where they compared honey to sucrose and found that the honey lowered weight gain, it lowered adiposity or fat accumulation, it lowered blood triglycerides. And so like, like there's actually, from a metabolic standpoint, a host of benefits toto a mild amount of something like an organic honey intake. And when you look at how high it is in things like antioxidants and minerals, you know, and we could probably get into like the prebiotic and probiotic content, et cetera here in a bit. I'm extremely happy with honey being a sweetener in this thing.

That's good because we looked at it pretty closely. Once that was agreed to be the carbohydrate source or the principal carbohydrate source, as well as the way this bar was actually held together, it was interesting to find that there's something like 181 nutritive components in honey. So considering the fact that you're dealing with nutritionally agnostic or neutral thing in simple sugars and having this as a comparator, we were pretty impressed by that.

Yeah. And that was actually my concern. And I did a ton of research on this. When you told me you wanted to use honey as the sweetener, I'll admit at first I freaked out because I was kind of thinking of that whole fructose is evil type of scenario. And then I realized when I began to delve into a lot of these studies, and again, if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Bar I'll link to some of these studies in the show notes. But I was, I was floored at the benefits of honey. Now one of the issues though with honey is of course if it gets heated, you can lose out on a lot of, you know, some of these nutrient components, like I know enzymes and probiotics, which are things that you can find in honey, they get destroyed upon exposure to like long term heat or like high heat pasteurization processes. And I wanted to ask you about what you found when it comes to, you know, the effect of heat on antioxidants the type of heat used in the production of this bar, and like how you avoided destroying some of the honey with the actual way that the bar was created when it comes to the heating standpoint, well, this is one.

Of the things that actually took us a long time because we had to find the right organic honey supplier, one which would satisfy our food scientists as being sufficiently stable but also satisfying the needs to provide real nutrition. And one of the things we did was we found an organic honey source that provided a flash heating method that was far less extensive than traditional pasteurization, which would be at about 90 plus centigrades for hours at a time, literally processing most of the nutrition out of the bar. This is a flash heating method at a lower level, about 60C. And the data that we found based on their testing of the honey was that the minerals, the antioxidant benefits of the honey are retained. And in fact, some heating has been found to actually create a, what's called a Maillard reaction, which increases total antioxidant capacity. And we found some studies on that. So we're reasonably satisfied that we're balancing the need to make sure the honey doesn't decompose while at the same time providing something that's full of nutrients. And that's something that we're going to continue looking for to make sure that we're providing the optimal source there.

So you're not using like a really intense long term pasteurization high heat process in the production of this bar. From what I understand, it's like a flash heat where it's like 60 degrees Celsius for a few minutes rather than hours of processing at a really high heat.

Yeah, As a matter of fact, I spoke directly with the supplier and it's something like 15 minutes of flash heating. And it's highly intentional to maintain the nutrient value in the honey.

Yeah. Which I'm again extremely happy about when it comes to being able to maintain, because that's what I hate is when you add a bunch of killer superfood ingredients to a product and then you just eat heat the hell out of them and destroy half of the benefit ofof the actual ingredients, you know, and when you look at honey, I mean, it has like, you know, starch digesting enzymes like amylase in it, it has prebiotics in, has probiotics in it. And you know, a lot of these things that can get destroyed with long term heat pasteurization. But this bar is very, very minimally processed, like extremely minimally heated. So you're not getting a lot of like, like sterilization, pasteurization, and irradiation of the actual components of the honey. So, I mean, even when you look at the probiotic boosting properties of honey, you know, it's very, very good when it comes to, like, healing gastrointestinal disorders. And so I think that combined with some of the, the, you know, gastrointestinal nourishing components of things like chia seeds, for example, that's why this bar has absolutely, you know, no, for, for me, it produces zero gut issues whatsoever compared to a lot of the, a lot of the other health bars that I've got consumed. So the honey thing, I'mI'm extremely happy about once again. And then I also wanted to ask you about antioxidants. So delve into how youhow you got the total antioxidant capacity of this bar so high. I mean, I know you've mentioned some of the high antioxidants containing foods in it, but talk to me a little bit about, about. Cause I know that you've learned a lot when it comes to oxidative stress measurement from this medical device that you developed, but talk to me about antioxidants and how you maximize, maximize them in this bar.

Well, it's interesting because when we were studying oxidative stress for the device we were interested in was supplementation and whether or not taking things like vitamin A, C, E, cla, other supplements would have an effect on oxidative stress. And the reality is that people like Michael Pollan and others who talk about real food making a difference, it was really validated in a lot of the studies out there. And there's folks who look at interventions for oxidative stress. There's a lot you have to do to move the needle, and food is one of the primary things to do to counteract the free radical production from exercise. So we were looking at that very heavily. If you're going to have a bar for active, healthy people, it's got to be packed with antioxidant properties. So in this bar, the organic honey, the almonds, the nibs, the quinoa, the chia seeds, the chocolate liquor, they all contain very high levels of flavonoids, which, like traditional antioxidants like vitamin E, are free radical scavengers. So you can't get, in my view, at least these kinds of benefits from supplements, they're best delivered in food. And food itself is not going to solve all of the free radical issues out there. But it's a great start, and we Think that this bar has a very, very high attack value, total antioxidant capacity value, based on everything that we've seen.

That would be based on the flavonoid content and the free radical scavenging content of everything from the organic honey, the Spanish almonds, the cacao nibs, the kaniwa, the chia seeds, and the chocolate liqueur, you know, with the cocoa solids and all the antioxidants that the cocoa provides. So basically, you've got a whole bunch of things in here to manage oxidative stress again, without adding like a bunch of like synthetic ascorbic acid or synthetic vitamin C or something like that.

Exactly.

I love it. Okay, cool. So next up, you know, we talked a little bit about how you actually made this taste so good. And this concept of organoleptic, like the combination of organic honey with the slightly bitter, unprocessed cacao nibs for that perfect chocolatey flavor. And then it seems like the chocolate liqueur and the coconut give you this rich, slightly sweeter effect, but in this kind of, kind of subtle way that doesn't make your mouth pucker from too much sweetness. Then you get some crisp from the chia and the almonds that I think gives you a really well put together taste without any of the natural flavors added in, any of those notorious natural flavors that we talked about. But for you, in developing a bar, how do you do it? Are there actual taste tests that you put this thing through? Aside from sending a guy like me a copious amount of bars over the past two years to taste myself and give to my kids and wife, I'm just curious, where's the taste component come in? When you put the stamp of approval on a bar and say, hey, this thing actually tastes, like, good.

It's interesting because we have a team that will go through a sensory test with a custom made product like this, and you try to keep the same team from iteration to iteration. But in this bar, we probably went through 20 to 25 different iterations in the lab until we got it right. And there's a scoring system that we apply to texture, taste, mouth feel, all sorts of elements. And so our, our team of roughly about 20 people would assemble in the R D lab and try the bar. We would never tell you the client, what we thought of it until we heard back from you, because we don't want to influence your perception of the bar. So we keep those results to ourselves. But this, this bar is so good. The reason I had to get it from Matt was because we didn't have any left ourselves from our retains.

Yeah. And by, by the way, for those who don't know who Matt is, he's the guy who kind of like manages operations for my business and he's been helping a lot with like the behind the scenes logistic of us putting this bar together. But yeah, I've, I've had to go to him begging for extra bars myself.

Yeah, we were out, so it's, I'm, I mean, I'm eating one while we're talking here. You shouldn't, I guess, shop or do a podcast. Hungry. But I, it's, it's a really fantastic bar. It's the first bar that I've ever really talked about public.

Yeah, no, I'mI dig it. I hadi had one. Well, I've got one here, but my other one was crumbled up into my smoothie this morning. A little bit of added crunch. So. Speaking of crunch, obviously I had a whole bunch of demands. You know, I wanted to be hypoallergenic. I wanted it to be clean. I wanted to have a lot of antioxidants, a lot of minerals, a lot of amino acids without excess protein. I wanted my insulin levels to be low. I wanted, and they are my postprandial blood glucose levels to be low after eating this thing. And then of course, I wanted to hold up in the heat, hold up in the cold. Was my, was my testing process annoying to you? I mean, has anybody actually put you through tests like this before when it comes to creating a bar like this? Like, I'm, I'm just curious if this is typical when it comes to creating an energy bar.

It's not typical. At the time it might have been slightly annoying to me, only in the sense that I had to tell people at my office what we were doing with this because we actually sent you a separate supply after we had done one run of the lab and I think we had to do another run for this. So I explained that I think you were, in addition to the sauna, I think you went on like a three to five hour bike ride in 90 degree weather and you put the bar like in the pouch of your, your riding shorts and you took the bar out for a ride and I had no idea what the result would be because we, we never tested it out like that in the lab. We do accelerated stability studies, but we never did anything like that. And it was hilarious.

Yeah, yeah, I, I put it through the ring. I took that like 38 degrees below zero race that I did in Vermont too, to see how it held up there. And I mean, again, like, you know, I could take it snowboarding. I could take it out in the cold. And I know this is starting to sound like kind of a commercial, but, like, I'm. I'm freaking stoked about this thing, and I'm. And I'm stoked about getting into the hands of other people to test and to try and to taste themselves. So. So it's pretty much done. Like. Like what I'm holding now. This is the final version, right, David?

It is, yeah. It's done. It's done.

I mean, granted, I might. I might eventually have like a phase two on this thing if we decide, you know, we want to. We want to add up, you know, add in some other. Some other deals, but basically. So the. So the final list of ingredients, it is organic honey almonds, cocoa nibs, hydrolyzed gelatin, baby quinoa or kaniwa, white chia seeds, coconut flakes, chocolate liqueur, which is basically roasted and ground cocoa beans, water, organic rice protein. Oh, and I should mention, by the way, the chia seeds are soaked. So the. The. Similar to the Kanawha, the. The lectin content is extremely low in this. If you're concerned about like, like lectins or anything along those lines, you know, any gut irritants, it's non existent. So where was I? Water, organic rice protein, pea protein isolate, sesame seeds, cocoa powder, cocoa butter, sea salt and tocopherols. That's it. That's it. I love it. It's clean. Dude, I'm. I'm super duper, duper proud of this thing. As a matter of fact, just in celebration of us having revealed this bar to the world, I'll tell you guys in a second where you can get this thing. I'm gonna open it and I'm gonna take a bite because it is amazing, I'm sure. Yes. You guys got. You hear that crunch? Yeah. Those are the white chia seeds, baby. This thing is super duper tasty. And you can get it. Now, if you're listening in, you can try it. You can toss out all your other energy bars because you're not gonna need them anymore. So it's called Nature Bite. Nature Bite. At least that's what I'm calling it for now. The Greenfield Nature Bite bar is now available here. So you can get it. First of all, you could just go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com bar and over there I'll link to everything David and I talked about from, like, the Mitochondrial free radical theory of aging book to David's company bariatrics nutrition to the breath test David developed for aldehydes and oxidation, the ketone breath ketone monitor. All the fascinating studies and the research that I found on the health effects of organic honey. Whole bunch more just go to BenGreenFitness.com bar or if you want to get this bar right away, 10% discount for everybody listening into the show. Instant 10% discount go to the following go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Nature Bite just like it sounds like. BenGreenfieldFitness.com nature bite and your 10 code drumroll please is Greenfield I do not know if these bars are going to last very long at all because if, if you eat them at the rate that my kids and my wife are eating them, then you're they're, they're gonna disappear fast. But either way, looking at the label now, apparently according to the label, gluten free, soy free, dairy free, again, amazing mouthfeel, amazing taste. It's got like the perfect combination of salt and sweetness and fat and protein. You know, again, like the collagen content of a whole cup of bone broth and a whole bunch of other goodies hidden there. And so again, BenGreenfieldFitness.com nature by and use 10% discount code GREENFIELD David dude, it's been a wild ride the past couple of years. Thanks for not killing me, man.

Ben, it's been my pleasure. Thank you.

Yeah. All right, folks, well, I hope you've enjoyed this show. I hope it's been helpful for you and I'm extremely excited to be able to share with you what I've spent the past two years creating along with David. So check it out. Bengrivedelfitness.com naturebyte 10% code greenfield if you want to grab the bar now. Bengreenfieldfitness.com bar if you want the show notes for this episode, I'm Ben Greenfield along with David Ehrman from Bariatrics Nutrition signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com have a healthy week.

You've been listening to the Ben Greenfield fitness podcast. Go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness and performance advice.

Sam.