If like me, you often find yourself hungry on the go, stuck on a long commute, or just too busy to make a healthy snack, then you’ve probably found yourself grabbing bars: granola bars, protein bars, nut bars or even Mars bars. The problem is that most of them are just as bad as a candy bar. Lots of preservatives, dairy, wheat, soy, corn, sugar, you name it – all the junk is in there and they’re often high in calories.
These days I’m trying to steer clear of all potentially inflammatory foods, from dairy to gluten and even eggs. That certainly narrows the field for a square meal, let alone a snack. During a recent chat with my fab nutritionist, Mary Vance, she mentioned Epic Bars. “Epic what?” I said. She told me they were popular with fans of the paleo diet, so I made a note to check them out.
The nice people at Epic sent me some samples so I could check them out and tell you about them. (The opinions are all mine, I might add.). The best way I can describe them is they are like chunky meat jerky, but rather more interesting. There are four meats to choose from: bison, lamb, beef and turkey. Each one comes with additional flavors: lamb and mint, turkey with almonds and cranberry, you get the idea.
So how do they taste? My favorite is the bison with bacon and cranberry. It’s hearty and meaty with a tang – no doubt from the sour, tart cranberries. They’re not pretty mind you – molded dehydrated meat is hard to make beautiful. Instead they’ve focused on making the packaging aesthetic and the web site features sepia-toned photographs of cows and a 70s-looking dude with shaggy hair running shirtless through the hinterland. Very paleo.
At around $2.80 each, a candy bar would be cheaper, but you’d crash and burn from the sugar high in no time which in my mind is a far higher price. Give them a try – you’ll probably like them. Epic.
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