Given their use of sugar alcohols, I'm electing NOT to consume any of the products mentioned in Posts #552 to #558 now that my initial trial is over. I therefore looked into whether that leaves me with any options besides the Lärabars cited in Post #365, and the only possibilities I found were RxBars... I hope they taste delicious because the five flavors I purchased were, in my opinion, ridiculously priced.
Hey now...I am talking shelf-stable stuff. I recently tried for the first time Trader Ho's refrigerated 4-cheese ravioli, and they made me gag. They were far more expensive and awful-tasting compared to Celantano's frozen cheese raviolis. So if we use that as a baseline, there's no way Trader's frozen Mac n' Cheeze is better than Kraft's shelf-stable Mac n' Cheese. Damn you!
I've been eating a lot of whole foods, especially fruit, for the last several months, and I noticed that after I started eating that way, the highly processed bars like Quest and others just started tasting incredibly fake to me. In fact, the last Quest bar I took a bite of about six weeks ago, I spit it out and threw the whole thing in the trash. I have since switched over to Kind bars because they are actually made of real food and the ingredient list is just superior in my opinion. Some might critique Kind bars as being high fat, high carb bars, with little protein, but that doesn't bother me at all. I stopped obsessing about protein about a year ago, and just focus more on food quality these days instead of macro ratios. I love the taste of Kind bars and I like the way I feel when I eat them.
I didn't try Kind because I saw like 8% to 12% added sugar on the label, but the next time I need to "cheat" I'll give it a try. The thing I'm obsessing over is added sugar. When I was cooking for myself I cut it out of my diet almost totally (making deserts and pancakes sweetened with dates) but I'm no longer in that situation. (RxBars and Lärabars have no added sugar at all, or very close to it.) I let myself have sweets when I really want them because I know if I deny myself, I'll end up bingeing, which is obviously worse. But snacking on a Kind bar rather than buying a whole slice of chocolate cake or a wedge of cheese cake would be a big improvement over that (which is what I do now). So I'll go ahead and give it a try and see if it satisfies my sweet tooth the next time I get a hankering...thanks.
For sure. Unlike the pure sweetness of a chocolate cake or cheesecake, the flavor of a kind bar is more well rounded because the sweetness is balanced out by the saltiness and savory flavors of the nuts and seeds. In terms of added sugar content, 6g isn't that much when you consider that there's 39g of added sugar in one can of soda like Coke.
In such situations, I eat meat or pasta with meat, or any unsweetened porridge. This way, my body feels satisfied, and I don't crave sweets. Plus, when I feel like eating something sweet, I do push-ups or squats instead.
No doubt, you have reached a level of higher consciousness that transcends where I have ever been. However, I am back to where I am beginning to see the reemergence of my six-pack, and that's always my strongest motivator to stay away from sweets. (I'm a results oriented kind of guy.)