Are protein bars actually healthy?

Are protein bars healthy? According to many fitness companies, the answer is yes. The bars should provide us with high-quality protein and other important substances. You can find out here whether the promise is actually true.

Protein bars are part of everyday life for many sports enthusiasts. Protein bars seem to be the perfect snack, especially if you do strength training and want to build muscle and promote the regeneration of your body. But how healthy a bar really is depends primarily on the ingredients it contains. In addition, the question arises as to whether protein bars are really necessary for a balanced diet.

Are Protein Bars Necessary?

Proteins are vital building blocks of our body that we have to ingest every day through food. According to the AOK, proteins are actually significantly involved in muscle building and, as enzymes, ensure that numerous metabolic processes can take place in the body. According to the DGE, adults up to the age of 65 have a daily protein requirement of 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight. For a person who weighs 70 kilograms, that would equate to 56 grams of protein per day.

You can already reach this value, for example, if you eat 100 grams of oatmeal, 300 milliliters of soy milk, 200 grams of tofu, 100 grams of chickpeas and two slices of wholemeal bread throughout the day. According to the Bavarian consumer service and the AOK, protein bars are therefore not necessary to cover the daily protein requirement. The DGE also tells Stiftung Warentest that additional protein is not necessary.

In addition, fitness companies advertise again and again that the protein requirement is increased if you exercise regularly. Protein bars are of course particularly useful for getting more protein every day. But even this statement does not agree with scientific knowledge. According to Stiftung Warentest, the protein requirement is only increased in competitive athletes. Even if you train for 30 minutes five times a week, you don’t need to eat more protein.

According to the Bavarian consumer service, however, even high-performance athletes do not have to resort to protein bars or powder. Since they generally have an increased calorie requirement, they sometimes eat significantly more than average per day. If you pay attention to a balanced diet, you can easily cover the increased protein requirement with natural protein sources.

So the bars are not really necessary. But are protein bars at least healthy?

Are protein bars healthy?

Whether a protein bar is healthy depends primarily on its composition. This varies from manufacturer to manufacturer. According to the AOK, however, many conventional protein bars contain high amounts of sugar as well as glucose syrup, fructose syrup or invert sugar syrup. So they are more like a candy than a healthy snack.

Some protein bars are also sugar-free and sweetened with artificial sweeteners or sugar substitutes (like xylitol or erythritol). How exactly these substances affect our body has not yet been finally clarified. According to the NDR, however, sweeteners in particular are associated with a number of negative health effects: They mess up our feeling of satiety and hunger and are suspected of changing our intestinal flora and even our brain activity. So far, there is no such evidence for sugar substitutes. According to the NDR, however, they can cause gastrointestinal problems from a quantity of ten to 20 grams.

In addition, protein bars often contain added vitamins and minerals. According to the AOK, this is also problematic – because people who consume many protein bars and similar products per day easily take in too high a dose of various nutrients. This can lead to health problems in the long run.

Are protein bars sustainable?

Many protein bars contain whey protein and other dairy products. These should guarantee the high protein content. However, dairy products are problematic from an environmental perspective due to their poor carbon footprint. In particular, cattle farming leads to high emissions of greenhouse gases. According to Statista, one liter of cow’s milk produces around 3.2 kilograms of CO2 emissions. In comparison: With soy and oat milk, this value is only 0.9 to one kilogram.

Since protein bars are highly processed products, there are also high CO2 emissions during production and the numerous necessary individual steps.

Last but not least, the milk components in bars that are not certified organic most likely come from factory farmed animals. You can find out more about this problem here: “Broken milked”: So many cows have to die in Germany every year for our milk.

Protein bars: is that also healthy?

In addition to conventional protein bars, you will also find vegan protein bars in organic quality on the market. These often consist of nuts, dried fruit and a vegetable protein powder such as soy, rice or pea protein. Since the dried fruit provides natural sweetness, these bars often do without added sugar or other questionable additives. The organic quality also guarantees that they are free of chemical-synthetic pesticides.

These bars are therefore not only healthier, but also more sustainable. However, like conventional protein bars, they are often relatively expensive. And even vegan fitness bars are not really necessary for your protein needs. Instead, you can make sure to include natural protein sources in your diet. Plant-based foods that provide you with a lot of protein are, for example, whole grains, legumes (like beans and lentils), soy products, nuts or some vegetables like broccoli and mushrooms. You can find out more about this in this article: Vegetable protein: These foods provide a lot of protein.

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