The Ultimate Ranking Of ‘Healthy’ Energy Bars (From Best To Worst)

With all the nutrition bars on the market these days, walking down the snack aisle at the grocery store in search of the ‘perfect’ energy bar can be quite a daunting task. The fact that most energy bars claim to be “healthy” and “all-natural” can make the task of figuring out which one to buy even more difficult. Luckily, we’re here to help. Below is a list of popular energy bars, ranked from best to worst — from a health perspective.

When it comes to energy bars that are meant to fuel your body for work, we’re looking for a bar that has an appropriate mix of carbs, protein and fats without racking up too many calories and sugars. The ideal bar would have 250 calories or less, 30 to 40 grams of energy-fueling carbs, no more than 14 grams of sugar, between seven and eight grams of protein and between five and six grams of fat. We also want to take note of each energy bar’s ingredient list — if an energy bar meets these macronutrient parameters but is loaded with chemicals and sugar additives, it won’t appear at the top of our list.

Keep in mind that energy bars should only be consumed if you’re about to do some type of physical activity, so we’re ranking these bars taking into consideration that you’ll be using quite a lot of energy soon after. That’s why we’re keeping the carb and calorie count benchmarks higher than for a typical snack bar.

1. Go Raw Raisin Crunch Bar

• Calories: 240
• Carbs: 32g
• Sugars: 12g
• Protein: 6g
• Total Fat: 10g

With only six ingredients to its name, this energy bar really hits the spot. We only wish it had a little less fat. But we’re comforted by the fact that the fat comes from healthy sources like sunflower seeds, flaxseeds and sesame seeds. We love that the bar doesn’t contain any shady ingredients and that it’s naturally sweetened with raisins and dates.

2. The GFB Gluten Free Oatmeal Raisin Bar 

• Calories: 220
• Carbs: 30g
• Sugars: 14g
• Protein: 12g
• Total Fat: 7g

The perfect energy bar for those who live that gluten-free life. The oats-based bar offers the lasting energy that low-glycemic carbs like oats and brown rice deliver so well. At 14 grams of sugar per bar, this energy bar is pushing the envelope when it comes to sugar — but we’re accepting of it because it mostly comes from healthy sources like raisins, dates and cinnamon.

3. Chocolate Sea Salt Bar RXBAR

• Calories: 210
• Carbs: 24g
• Sugars: 13g
• Protein: 12g
• Total Fat: 9g

If you’re a health-junkie like us, you likely already know that with a list of wholesome, no-B.S. ingredients, RX bars are at the top of the totem pole when it comes to healthy energy bars. This particular one gets its protein content from egg whites, its healthy fats from almonds and cashews and its sweetness from dates, chocolate and cocoa. We only wish it had a higher carb content — an essential macronutrient for fueling long-lasting energy.

4. Raspberry Cashew & Chia KIND Bar 

• Calories: 190
• Carbs: 21g
• Sugars: 10g
• Protein: 4g
• Total Fat: 11g

KIND bars get a bad rap for being high in sugar, but much of their sugar comes from healthy sources like honey and cranberries. Also, if you’re about to put in some serious work at the gym, your body will quickly use that sugar as fuel. Unlike many other energy bars, this one is made up of ingredients that you can actually pronounce. The fat content is higher than we’d like, but it comes from healthy fat sources like almonds, cashews and peanuts.

5. Sea Salt Caramel Luna Bar 

• Calories: 190
• Carbs: 26g
• Sugars: 9g
• Protein: 8g
• Total Fat: 6g

This caramel-delight energy bar fits into our nutrition parameters almost perfectly, we do wish it had a few more grams of carbs and a few more calories for extra fuel. It’s still not at the top of our list, because its ingredients list isn’t as wholesome as KIND’s. Although most ingredients listed are organic, organic brown rice syrup and organic cane sugar (both sugar additives) appear at the top of the label.

6. Health Warrior Mint Chocolate Superfood Protein Bar 

• Calories: 190
• Carbs: 25g
• Sugars: 9g
• Protein: 11g
• Total Fat: 8g

Although this bar is commonly marketed as a protein bar, its long list of superfood ingredients and the fact that it hovers closely to our benchmark parameters made us want to include it at the top of our list. The energy bar is mainly made up of sought-after health food ingredients like quinoa, chia seeds and oats. Bonus: The mint chocolate flavor is a crowd pleaser!

7. Dark Chocolate Cashew Chia Kashi GOLEAN Plant-Powered Bar

• Calories: 200
• Carbs: 21g
• Sugars: 8g
• Protein: 8g
• Total Fat: 10g

The bar boasts a lot of healthy ingredients like cashews, almonds, chia seeds and whole grain oats. But it also lists some not-so-healthy ones, like invert cane syrup, tapioca syrup and glycerin (all sugar additives). Despite this, we’re still happy that it’s able to keep the sugar content at eight grams.

8. Larabar Organic With Superfoods – Hazelnut, Hemp & Cacao 

• Calories: 210
• Carbs: 23g
• Sugars: 16g
• Protein: 4g
• Total Fat: 11g

Like some other energy bars higher on our list, this energy bar boasts only six ingredients. Unfortunately, it doesn’t make the top of our list due to its high sugar content that goes above our predetermined 14-grams-of-sugars-per-bar health parameter. The good news is that the higher sugar content comes from dates (which is the first ingredient listed) and the higher-than-ideal fat content comes from the hazelnuts, hemp seeds and almonds that make up the majority of this bar.

9. Cookies & Cream Quest Bar

• Calories: 200
• Carbs: 21g
• Sugars: 1g (plus 2g of the sugar alcohol Erythritol)
• Protein: 21g
• Total Fat: 8g

Quest Bars tend to be a real hit among health-conscious consumers because most varieties only have one gram of sugar. But what people often forget is that in order to make this bar edible without racking up the sugar content, the manufacturers decided to use sugar substitutes like erythritol, stevia and sucralose. Sugar substitutes like these could be addictive, according to some experts.  In addition, a bar with this much protein (21 grams per serving) is best-consumed as a post-workout snack, rather than a pre-workout energy booster.

10. Peanut Butter GoMacro Bar

• Calories: 270
• Carbs: 34g
• Sugars: 11g
• Protein: 12g
• Total Fat: 0g

Why does this popular vegan energy bar rank so low on our list, you might ask? For starters, it pushes the envelope when it comes to our calories-per-bar limit — 270 calories is a little more than what’s necessary for a pre-workout pick-me-up. The bar, which boasts all-organic ingredients, does list organic brown rice syrup as its first ingredient. This sugar additive has a very high glycemic index and will likely give you a surge of energy with a subsequent crash.

But with zero grams of fat and 34 grams of energy-fueling carbs, this GoMacro bar still isn’t the worst energy bar on the market.

11. Oats & Chocolate Fiber One Bar

• Calories: 140
• Carbs: 29g
• Sugars: 7g
• Protein: 2g
• Total Fat: 4g

When it comes to bars that are meant to fuel your body for activity, there’s such a thing as too few calories. This FiberOne bar is a prime example. At 140 calories, it’s better suited for an occasional afternoon snack than a go-to pre-workout energy bar. The bar’s negligible amount of protein doesn’t do much for us either. Corn syrup, a popular sugar additive, is also listed fourth on the nutrition bar’s long list of confusing ingredients.

The bar has one redeeming quality that saves it from the bottom of our list — it contains a good amount of carbs with not a lot of sugar.

12. PROBAR Meal Original Trail Mix 

• Calories: 360
• Carbs: 49g
• Sugars: 16g
• Protein: 9g
• Total Fat: 16g

For an energy bar that’s marketed as healthy, PROBAR did not impress us much with its nutritional content or its ingredients, for that matter. The first ingredient on the label is, once again, brown rice syrup (and not even the organic kind!). And 360 calories would make sense if you’re using this bar to replace a meal — which we wouldn’t recommend in the first place — but if you’re using it as a quick pick-me-up before the gym, you’re getting way more than you bargained for. The 16 grams of fat is also a little concerning, but at least we know that these are healthy fats coming from the many nuts that make up this bar’s ingredients list. All in all, we wouldn’t recommend unless you’re truly using this bar as a meal replacement.

13. Chocolate Brownie CLIF Bar

• Calories: 250
• Carbs: 44g
• Sugars: 21g
• Protein: 9g
• Total Fat: 5g

Once again, unless you’re planning on doing some serious physical activity, there’s no need for you to be consuming this much sugar in one go. Think about: the American Heart Association recommends that we limit our intake of added sugar to 25 grams per day, so if you ate one of these bars you’d only need to consume five more grams of sugar to surpass your daily limit. The first item on this CLIF Bar’s ingredient list is… you guessed it, Organic Brown Rice Syrup. The good news? It still stays below our 250-calorie-per-bar limit.

14. Peanut Butter PowerBar

• Calories: 230
• Carbs: 44g
• Sugars: 26g
• Protein: 10g
• Total Fat: 4g

Unless you’re planning on working out for an extended period of time, we’d steer clear of this bad boy. Although— with 44 grams of carbohydrates — this bar is a good source of lasting energy, unless your fueling for a marathon or going on a super intense hike, there’s no reason you need to be consuming 26 grams of sugar in one sitting. With a hard-to-read ingredient list that includes cane inverted syrup, soy protein isolate, maltodextrin and partially defatted peanut flour (huh?) this bar barely has any real-food ingredients to speak of.

15. Peanut Butter Balance Bar

• Calories: 200
• Carbs: 21g
• Sugars: 17g
• Protein: 15g
• Total Fat: 7g

Although the nutrition content of this bar may not seem, at first glance, as horrible as some of the other ones that we’ve listed so far, its ingredients list is cringe-worthy. The second ingredient on the long list of chemicals and sugar additives is none other than fructose (AKA fruit sugar). Fructose isn’t inherently bad for you if you get it in small quantities from fruit, but you definitely want to steer clear of any processed food that lists it as one of its main ingredients. Consuming fructose in large quantities has been linked to an increased risk of obesity, type two diabetes and heart disease.

16. Nature Valley Peanut Butter Dark Chocolate Bar

• Calories: 190
• Carbs: 14g
• Sugars: 6g
• Protein: 10g
• Total Fat: 12g

It’s not uncommon to spot exercisers munching on Nature Valley protein bars before hitting the gym in the hopes of getting an energy boost to fuel their workout. But with only 14 grams of carbs to speak of, this bar isn’t likely to add much energy to the mix. The bar also contains more grams of fat than we’d like. Much of that fat is saturated — 3.5 grams to be exact. And with roasted peanuts being the only seemingly natural ingredient on the label, this energy bar clearly falls at the bottom of our list.

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