Are Gatorade Protein Bars a Power Snack or Sugar Bomb?

A Bite-Size Read for Your Health and Waistline

Photo by Zoshua Colah on Unsplash

Most of us know Gatorade for its sports drinks. Recently I saw on social media that Gatorade also makes protein bars! Did you know this?! As a health coach, I knew I needed to take a closer look. What I found was surprising, to say the least.

I headed to Gatorade’s website to find the specific protein bar from the post. After some digging, I finally found it — along with a hefty list of claims. Their marketing claims they contain 20g of whey and milk protein to rebuild muscles after exercise. They also say the bars refuel your body with 39–40g of carbohydrate energy per bar and each 80-gram bar has 340–360 calories. Admittedly, I’m not sold by these claims! Given all the bars I’ve explored for myself and my clients, this seems like a lot of carbs and calories, although if you read my articles often you know calories aren’t the piece I focus on — it’s the quality of those calories (and the carbs).

Gatorade’s marketing made my Spidey-Sense go up; these numbers are meant to make their product sound more nutritious than it actually is. That being said, their next marketing line states their product is “the protein bar used by the pros.” While this may be true, does your day or workout routine look like that of a pro athlete? Mine’s not! And I do more than…