Tasty flavours
Rise Bars
I’d never heard of Rise Bars before but when they contacted me to ask if I wanted to try their gluten free bars I did some research and they come in quite the selection of flavours. They make three types of bars; breakfast, energy and protein. Their breakfast and energy bars are delicious! You may be familiar with Boomi and Prana bars and if so then you will have an idea about what these bars are all about. They just have a new name and a new look now. As the gluten free traveller I’m often on the move so I’m always on the lookout for tasty new gluten free bars that I can pop in my purse when I’m off somewhere. I’m very happy I got to try these ones.
The breakfast bars are made from a sweet mixture of fruit and nuts. They are definitely my favourite of the three types. Each bar has around 160 calories and the Crunchy Macadamia Pineapple and Crunchy Honey Almond are my favourites. They are really tasty and I would eat them at any time of the day.
The energy bars are again made from a mixture of mostly fruits and nuts. They each have around 190 calories and contain 5g of protein. The Blueberry Coconut is definitely my favourite. Anything with a coconutty taste does it for me and it goes really well with the taste of blueberry. Double yum!
All Rise Bars are gluten free, soy free and kosher certified. They are labelled with NFC Gluten Free Guard which is new to me and looks like it’s a certifier which specialises in the natural and organic product industry. The label also includes information that the bars are manufactured in a gluten free, soy free and peanut free facility so celiacs don’t need to worry about cross contamination issues. Yay!
The protein bars are quite the chunky bar at 1.5 times the weight of the other bars. The Crunchy Carob Chip bar contains 260 calories and 17g of protein whilst the Almond Honey Protein bar has 280 calories and 20g  of protein with the only ingredients being almonds, honey and why protein. At almost 300 calories per bar I can picture many other things I’d rather eat for these calories (possibly even two of the breakfast bars!) so personally I think  these bars would be better saved for before/after intense activity when I’m really looking for extra energy. I plan to keep the protein bars for munching after one of my long training runs leading up to my next half marathon.
Erin Smith
Sep 25th, 2011I am really curious about that NFC certification. It seems suspicious to me. Their website has no information at all. Thanks for the tip.
Laura
Sep 25th, 2011I feel the same way, I couldn’t find any information about what being certified gluten free by them actually means. I emailed them to see if they would provide more info so I’ll let you know what they say..
Pete
Oct 5th, 2011Thanks for your questions, Laura and Erin. We received official Gluten-Free certifcation back in July from National Food Certifiers, based out of New York. They have worked with a number of well-known natural foods companies, and were at our facility for three days to ensure all of our products are not only Gluten-Free but also Kosher.
We also received an independent gluten analysis from Silliker Labs, which verified that all of our bars are under 5 ppm – well below the Gluten Free standard of 20 ppm. You are free to see copies of these certificates on our site: http://risebar.com/about/faq/.
If you have any further questions, do not hesitate to reach out!
Pete Spenuzza, CEO of Rise Bar