Your WLS-friendly guide to Protein Balls & Bars

Protein bars and balls are a very popular snack, but with so many available, how do you choose the best one?!

Whilst ideally you’ll snack on something from the five main food groups like dairy, fruit or nuts, protein bars and balls can be a really convenient and tasty way to top up your protein intake for the day and keep your appetite at bay.

When I started looking at this section of the supermarket (well two sections really – the muesli bar aisle and the health food aisle), I realised how many different options there are. All up I found around 80 different options once you include all of the different flavours. Phew! To simplify things a little I picked random flavours of each brand that had multiple.

It’s also quite tricky to compare because they are all slightly different and marketers are very good at convincing you their product is the best option, even though it might not be a good one. So… here goes. These are my tips for choosing a protein bar or ball for a snack.

Note: these tips are based on reading labels – if you’re not sure how to read a label properly, check out this post.

Serving size

First things first, check the serving size. The bars and balls I looked at varied from 25g to 55g which is a huge variation. After a sleeve, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to eat a full 55g serve, 25-30g is a more reasonable serving size.

However, when you’re looking at the nutrition info per serve, you need to consider if you will eat the full serve suggested on the label.

For example, the Tasti Smooshed balls have a serving size of 5 balls (58g) which is big post-sleeve. This means that although it looks like they are high in protein with 10g per serve, it’s unlikely you will be eating that 10g in one snack. Instead, you could think of them as each ball having 2g protein and go from there.

Energy

First, check the energy content. You don’t want a snack to turn into a meal in itself! As a guide, a snack around 400 – 600 kilojoules (100 – 150 calories) per serve is usually a good option.

Protein

Most protein bars and balls seemed to be adjusting their serving sizes to be able to claim 10g protein per serve. This would be fantastic, but often this means the serving sizes are bigger than what you can eat, so I suggest looking for at least 5g protein per actual serve.

Saturated fat

Some of the bars and balls I looked at were really high in saturated fat (usually because of chocolate or coconut oil). As a quick rule of thumb, look for one that has less than 2.5g sat fat per serve.

Sugar

It’s common for protein balls and bars to be high in sugar. Ideally you want to find one that has less than 15 grams of sugar per 100 grams. However, some bars will have sugar coming from natural sugars in ingredients like dried fruit so they may be a little higher. Added sugars are what you want to avoid. To work this out, check out the ingredients list and watch out for syrups or refined sugar. I also found quite a lot of the pure protein bars (like Aussie Bodies, Atkins or Slim Secret) had artificial sweeteners added to keep them low carb. This is okay in small doses, but be careful as some people are sensitive to these after a sleeve and can feel ill after eating them.

Fibre

Fibre is really important for your gut and for filling you up and keeping you full between meals so look for a protein bar or ball that has more than 3g fibre per bar (or at least 1.5g per bar if 3g is too hard!).

Your cheat sheet!

When looking at the nutrition information on your favourite bar or ball, look for the following:

Serve	Aim for around 30g
Energy	Less than 600kJ
Protein	More than 5g per serve
Sat Fat	Less than 2.5g per serve
Sugar	Avoid added sugar. Ideally less than 15g per 100g.
Fibre	More than 3g per serve
Ingredients	Go for as many natural and unprocessed ingredients as possible

My Top Picks

Click here to see my top picks from the endless protein bars and balls out there!