First Look: Rowdy Bar

Rowdy Bar, Prebiotic Protein Bars
Weight: 1.5 ounces
Price: $30 for a package of 12 bars
Best Features: Simple ingredients, gluten free, dairy free, non-GMO, high protein, low on the glycemic index.
Room for Improvement: The flavors are a bit “meh.”

Rowdy Bars are new-ish to the market and offer a filling, high-protein bar with simple ingredients. With 8 to 11 grams of protein per bar, depending on the flavor, Rowdy Bars are a clean way to ensure you’re getting what you need with natural ingredients.

Coming in three flavors, Peanutty Dark Chocolate, Sunflower Butter N Berries and Chocolate Coconut Cashew, the texture is similar to a GoMacro bar. Sample ingredients include egg-white protein, organic dark chocolate, organic tapioca syrup and flax.

The major claim of the Rowdy Bar is that it contains a prebiotic superfood. Prebiotic foods are what the good bacteria (probiotics) in the gut feed upon. Rowdy Bars use yacon root syrup for one of the sweeteners and yacon root is a supposed prebiotic food. According to the Mayo Clinic, “the health benefits of currently available probiotics and prebiotics have not been conclusively proved,” however, it seems to be accepted in western medicine that probiotics do help with gut health, improving the natural microflora in the digestive tract. The Mayo Clinic goes on to say, “most healthy adults can safely add foods that contain prebiotics and probiotics to their diets. Future research may lead to advanced probiotics with greater potential to improve health.”

Even if prebiotics don’t directly benefit your health, Rowdy Bars still offer a protein snack that is gluten free, dairy free, non-GMO and contains organic ingredients.